He
by So Fyren Says
Summary: The story of Eol, thrall of Angband, concerning his long imprisonment and his eventual escape. Updated: Chapters 8-10, in which Eol meets Morgoth.
1. 1

Disclaimer: Characters and setting belongs exclusively to J.R.R. Tolkien and his estate.

Author's Note: This story follows HoME XI, p 320:

"But the title of dark elf was also sometimes applied to Elves captured by Morgoth and enslaved and then released to do mischief among the elves. I think this latter idea should be taken up. It would explain much about Eol and his smithcraft."

And Christopher Tolkien later notes: "In a scribbled note beside the two versions of the story he said that this would not do, being too repetitive of the later history of Maeglin, and that Eol's skill was derived from the Dwarves."

****

**He**

The Silmarils pulse, and Sauron is fascinated.

He would touch them as his master lies asleep on his throne, 'cept his master never sleeps.

And the Silmarils, as sure as they are alive to make imperishable crystal change shape, so they would slip from his hands.

He thought, knows, blood would mar him if he but touches them. This troubles him little; his rooms in Angband are washed in fluids less pure: newer, and older, than these.

Nevertheless, his whole form quavered. Not in pleasure of anticipation, nor in bathing himself within it. A different sort, one that makes him feel as if he is the victim.

Yet, he wants to touch them, so very badly, if just for a moment's hope.

Hope?

Sauron shakes his head, and tries to remember the meaning of the word. He cannot. The light beats before him, so close, so close; he sees his gauntleted hand reaching to touch it, hovering near master's brow.

Sauron's face, elven fair, his garb, as night, as blood from the torture chambers, his eyes fills with the Light from the Two Trees. Blessed light.

And Melkor is awake. He sees, but he stirs himself not, letting his High Captain come. The Silmarils do their work for him.

_What is a servant of his if they cannot be tempted?_

--

"We followed, my brother, you and I," He paused, "And we cannot regret."

Angband was dark: its plants obsidian, its fires jet ebony. Only the Silmarils are bright, Gorthaur thought, and caressed his own naked brow.

"No?" Gothmog asked. He wore the fana as one of the Eldar he had only today destroyed. He had found it very beautiful, unsettling. And as such, he was taught, it could be sinister, "Of course we can regret, but it is not going to do much. It did nothing for the wee ones that screamed for their father."

Feanor's mouth never smiled so cruelly, and his voice was never so sordid. The sough of fire laughed around him; oddly befitting, memories said.

Gorthaur could not resist touching Gothmog's face then. Indeed, he thinks he would have wished to kiss it if it was only less.... evil.

"True, it did nothing for them. Therefore we cannot." His fingers brushed through the Noldor dark hair, "Where is the freedom Melkor promised us?" He asked lightly, leaned close, and wished that he could feel a breath.

"Freedom is slavery," Gothmog replied, and laughed, incongruously bright, "For others."

"We have our own places." He patted Gorthaur absently, "As our Lord has his, for he alone wills the ultimate freedom for all. We have ours, do you not wear a parody of their slain king to battle and still do? So high, we Maiar are free to choose...."

There was no reply. Silence. Gorthaur whispered, but what he whispered should not be said.

For a brief moment, Gothmog's eyes flashed, but Gorthaur found it becoming in that visage, and for an instant, saw something more.

_He would have loved to meet their maker, his craftsman's life cried, and perhaps, even to serve him._

The chamber does not have shadows: not here, not so deep underground, not as in the Great Hall where the Light went through the walls. Touch, smell, hearing, and taste alone guided.

And mockeries always tasted sweet; they were what could be: molded, altered, with none of the labors of creating and all the elegance of a worthy idleness. The press of lips then tongue followed its ancient course. A perverse pleasure rippled a pleasant tension through the deep tunnels as shapes found each other and consummated their profanity.

--

Melkor laughed as he heard their pleas.

His captains' pleasure had not left him unaffected, or his dear trinkets cold.

They strained against him, pushing; faster and faster they rubbed against his skin, melting the ice and snow upon his crown.

The frenzied rhythm, wonderfully wild, took his mind to places where he would not otherwise see. He needed it, so adorable in its futility, in its illusion.

Nothing passes in his fortress he did not know, be it the tiniest whimper or the fleetest thought as light fingers, imitation to its last whorl, skimmed across skin that was kin in His thought.

Closing his eyes with darkness for his veil, the weight of the Silmarils lessened, but their cries increased. They were but children, after all, and wise as only children could be wise- as alarm to their elders.

They see as he does, and so young, knows naught but to react. The rhythm of Arda seemed to slow as the Silmarils struggled, morphing almost imperceptibly and very eager to escape their set. One, the last made, felt the black metal around it finally fade- its strength gone in the fight. The stone leapt, expecting air, and fell back in horror, grasped by tiny clawing, gold and iron tendrils...Where is air?

Melkor was amused. These three knew him so, loves him, and guards him as jealous children.

"We are a fine team, for love to be thus."

They quieted, and keening sobs rose.

"Bid me my sorcerer and captain."

Immediately, they came, adjusting their eyes the further they leave that dark chamber where they slept, and learned something they would not speak.

He came into his presence: immaculate, high-collared, and pale. A gash bled from shoulder to thigh.

He came into their presence: ruffled, a bit bruised, but alive.

They recoiled. In their light, it's not him at all. Someone lied. They all did. Accusingly, they looked at each other.

"My high captains verily," Melkor said, "To outrage Valar, Maiar, and Eldar by fulfilling their laws, stanching through HIS impulses even when it's merely bodies that did the deed."

Gothmog and Gorthaur trembled. They were glad afterwards, when the need was satiated. Gorthaur had looked so adoringly at Gothmog that the Capt. of Balrogs would have been tranquil if not it would ruin the fana he wore, the true fea of Feanor could tear him.

"What would thought do then, I wonder..." Melkor pondered.

Deep beneath the ground, the desecration delighted him, but he was not foolish. His fire could not be brought again to this world through parody, but if one believed enough...

Melkor indicated the Silmarils.

"Gorthaur, you wanted to touch them."

Gorthaur looked up.

"Touch it."

He wanted it, yet being commanded to do so seemed ill fitting, he did not wish it at all suddenly, and yet Melkor's every word is a command. Still, the Light, they shone into his eyes.

Each step, he felt himself disintegrating, floating into essence, drawn by their pulse. He stood so close.

Too close. Music, songs to calm, to sleep, lullabies, sank into noise.

Screaming, they shrank away.

"They do not like me." Gorthaur said to himself, disappointed.

The voice came from out of the void, "It does not matter. Touch it! You want to."

And he did, the softest touch upon those jewels. It was not so long ago that he does not remember what consecration did. They could curse; he was already cursed.

Climbing down, feet touched the ground, and his head was bowed as he stood at the foot of the dais. They were beautiful as untamed beauty be yet better because they were conscious. A tear edged toward the brim.

It was a while until he looked up again. Melkor's eyes were closed, and thin rivulets of blood streamed down the terrible face.

"You are bleeding, milord." Gorthaur ventured.

"It was worth it." Morgoth smiled blankly, his voice, "Black Hand, my disobedient child." He closed his eyes as Sauron, neither child nor disobedient to his own, screamed, for in place of the fair hand of the Noldo King, it was black, as stone, as the mud he had first shaped once upon a time.

--

All the torture chambers are on the surface of Utumno.

The sun shines upon the rough metal of the instruments, and upon the gleaming skins.

He had been here for a very long time, true infinity, the chief torturer.

He was powerful, he had not died. He did not crumple before countless eyes, countless pleading looks.

They come already broken, battered, maimed, even dead- poor children. Those last he sent into the dark, to remind those kept there of where they were, and who they were; then slowly, their eyes would film over, and they would not be able to see save by hearing and smell- the strict necessities of a soldier.

Sauron did not like death, nor did he treasure the dark save that one time, when he saw the brief flash of light and lunged for it.

In a life previous, he knew each piece of it, and longed to hold them in his hand. Then Melkor came and showed him that a series of light and dark would allow him to scrutinize the properties and formation closely. For a time, it was true, until the dark took over, and appeared twice as many as the light. Dark was simple, complete, absolute, with no variance, Morgoth told him.

Yet he will never like the complete darkness, darkness did nothing for him, it drives him to constant chaos- orcs were made in the dark- but so did light, apparently, at least, pure light. His left hand weighed heavy, the soft gold glove of heavy velvet did nothing to conceal the blackness beneath- a reminder against his future transgressions, if he dared any.

It would be good when he dared, when he completed, stanched his appetite, if he ever does. He had half-heartedly wished that the Maker's fea would be stronger enough to find his fana and inhabit it as if it was his own. Half-heartedly, because he knew he would not be able to let him go, and it would kill him by ripping through him when it discovered itself within his embrace. Would it be worth it, he wondered, to meet him, to hold him, to ask him, to thank him for finding the rhythm of Arda within light...and be banished to the eternal void afterwards. He wondered if he knew his name.

Polished smooth, the paths in the large square was of white marble, and separated each patch of square shaped ashen ground from the next: perfect squares, carefully placed so that blood and pieces of the body would not splatter beyond the bordering road.

"Milord.

He glanced down, and briefly closed his eyes. He hated orcs, no matter how many he saw, no matter what part he played in their making. Their forms appeared ridiculously undisciplined, lacking all symmetry.

"What?

He liked his peace- the systematic manners of the place- this mathematical art of bending strengths, each method its own equation.

"They broke my claw." The iron thing was mangled, shredded to pieces.

And the torture chambers were usually silent, at least, for a time. The Moriquendi did not scream much, they mutter, they curse. But the Calaquendi- for a people so bright and fell, they were painfully easy to provoke any reaction.

"Get it fixed.

"They can't.

"His eyes broke it.

It was not uncommon, however, for their ridiculously fierce gazes to break the metal and wood used on them. There was still a confounding difference between Aman Paradise and Arda Marred.

"Get a new one then.

The small orcs scurried to keep up with his strides.

"The officer said my term is not up yet." The small orc continued miserably, looking up at him with obscenely deep and large eyes.

"And I just started. I didn't know..." He said, what should be pitiful, but only seemed annoying.

"Stop then.

"Stop?

They stopped at the orc's station.

Small black stones crackled beneath his boots as he walked toward the vertical green stone, embedded firmly in the ground.

Sauron stood close to the ruined body upon it, feeling the faint breaths, and the acrid scents of mutilated flesh. Where is the purity of form now? He wanted to ask, and then laugh at the answer; he always wanted to ask...

Gray eyes within a swollen face saw him and spat.

"You know Him." Hoarse voice made its way through injured jaw and punctured chest. The iron collar around the Noldo's neck, stabled by two sharp prongs, had a deep scratch. It would need to be replaced....

"So do you. And now what?" Sauron questioned, and smiled, knowing that there was no more strength in that body to answer. He turned to the tentative orc nearby, still holding the mangled claw.

"Stop. And staunch his wounds. Take them to my master, and clean this place up. Enough as it is."

"My claw..." The orc faltered.

"It will be replaced, leave it in the ground."

He left, for he saw others waited by the gate, as always, in two perfect columns, their backed turned to the scenes behind. They would still shudder when they saw spectacles of his art, yet would become crueler with age, came the thought unbidden, as Sauron perceived a tall figure standing amongst them, walking forward quite determinedly.

A rope around his neck, and others around parts of person impeded his progress. At the sight of the Sorcerer, he stood his ground, his face set: eyes beautifully and utterly black.

Oh yes, Moriquendi, they have many vague stories about him....

The Elf looked very young, perhaps he still believes many of those tales, and made up more for himself

"You did not fight?" Sauron lifted a questioning eyebrow at the calm Elf in front of him. Their eyes met levelly, and there was naught but a faint scratch on his cheek.

"I see there is not point of struggle. They surprised me. They broke my weapons, and I guess," There the Elf paused, unsure why he was speaking, "Chance says that I would have a better chance of living if I can see, the fellow there," His bound hand pointed sideways, "He had a poker near my eyes."

Sauron felt himself smile.

"You are very wise."

--

"You see," Sauron said, as they came to the empty square, "You actually believe it."

He came to stand in front of the slab of stone, its newly washed surface effervescent in the noon sun.

There was no trace of its previous occupant, and the manacles hung limply along the sides.

It was so simple a devise to have broken so many. Merely restraint, restraint to a wall of most precious jade, iridescent green, color of growing, living things.

The end on an iron claw jutted out from a mound pebbles like an obscene claw. Sauron bent down and wondered briefly at the small orc that left it there, as if he did not wish others to accidentally to step on the sharp tines at the head and hurt themselves.

He turned around to see the Elf gazing at him with something that he seldom encountered now, though he should. Most had come too battered to care. But within the grim set of the youth's face was also curiosity. The mingled look of horror and fascination amused Gorthaur.

"Do you know who did this?" He held up the claw.

The elf said nothing. The gravity of the situation had finally settled perhaps. Already, rough -scaled hands hand pulled the ropes around his ankles, arms, and neck taut. His throat flexed convulsively, already reddened.

"A Light elf, he broke it with his eyes.

Sauron caressed the broken middle claw, forming it anew, and that point slightly sharper than the others.

"Have you seen their eyes?

Black eyes looked at him with pure desperation as orcs ripped and cut clothes apart, careful to avoid to skin, which they should not touch, on Melkor's orders- who preferred all things absolute- including injuries. The torn tunic, leggings, and boots fell around his feet, and the eyes seemed to threaten tears.

It occurred to Sauron then that this particular one was indeed, very young, as he circled the figure, perhaps nearly as young as the sun, to have no scars.

"You will," He continued, ignoring the furious stare, "They saw the Trees, and so they are never weaponless- even their stare can rent metal. Unlike you, Mordhel, and all Mordhil in Enor- make of Arda Marred, no ships to bear you anymore- to paradise, to the gods you worship.

With a wave of his hand, the orcs within the square grew still, and paused their efforts to pull the elf to the rock, its surface worn smooth, but redoubled efforts do not move statues.

"Why did you surrender? Would it not perhaps be no chance of living," Sauron swept his hand across the gruesome horizon, "No chance at all. Why did you not fight, and perhaps led them to blind, even kill you. You would not suffer as much, or shall suffer." His voice was soft, and he _would_ have an answer.

"I will be deceiving myself, and it would be cowardly to die, to fade, with full consciousness.

Sauron fell silent. He had allied to Melkor of the Other Music. He stood still for a moment.

"I trust you do not scream when hurt. I do not appreciate noise.

The elf drew himself taller- his lessons in Menegroth now full applicable to life.

"We were taught not to," A pained look passed as a shadow across his face, "Ever since we could speak.

"I am glad." Sauron said, "I trust the Sindar and the Avari. They make good spies and miners, for they do not worry the earth here," He continued wistfully, "The Light ones, on the other hand, wonderful warriors, wonderful handlers- possessing a refreshing creative facility." He pointed to one of the orcs that held the elf in place.

"Captain of the Scouts, squire to one of their lords. Craftsman of course, he crafted his own skin, and other's skins.

He pointed to another.

"Tracker of Doriath.

Then another. Then another

"Cupbearer to Thingol, captured after his first battle, or perhaps, skirmish would be more accurate," Sauron mocked, "For you only just encountered them, and by yourself as well.

"Ele..." The elf closed his eyes. The air of Angband felt oddly cool on his burning skin.

Sauron approached, and spoke into the elven ear, sharper than the Calaquendi sort, yet of the same fine make. Sometimes, he wondered if Eru made his children temptations on purpose, all that beauty bound in one fea and hroa- and would not that make Him the greater deceiver for offering what could not be had: true to the nature of temptations- the urge to have mere emptiness.

"I have met her you know." Sauron breathed into that ear, suppressing the urge to bite it and see it bleed. He laid a hand on the Elf's bare shoulder instead, feeling the solid and smooth flesh under his hand. It pleased him.

"Tell me something." the Elf spoke, a disconcerting light in his eyes as he stared straight ahead, past checkered layout of the Courtyard of Gorthaur, "Is she beautiful as we sing?"

Perhaps it was pity that stirred in him then, later he would argue that it was just an eccentric cruelty. But Sauron answered.

"Yes."

"Oh." The youth smiled, ever so briefly, and all his youth, all that is proudly elven in him gleamed like fierce diamonds.

They closed quickly upon him then, smooth iron and steel chains in hand to replace the rough ropes. And Sauron walked away, the sound of struggle curled with others, and faded behind his steps.

Melkor's orders.

-- 

Sauron could not sleep in his chambers. He did not need to sleep; yet, he desired it then, and he could not.

Summoned, he had entered the throne room, and lowered his gaze quickly, avoiding the Silmarils.

Melkor wanted a storm from him. Melkor wanted more arts. Melkor wanted twisted bodies to do his bidding, and he wanted them quickly- any way possible.

Somehow, the image of the young elf kept rising into his mind.

Twisted bodies, ugly things. He was an apprentice of Aule; he created beauty. He was Maia; he sang, hating alterations. He wanted Middle Earth so he may give it layout. Mountain here, lake here, forests there, a fair city in concentric circles- marvelous geometry. Melkor seemed understanding, the desire to have things to his will.

He gave the orcs to the captains, batches at a time. The day he led those things to battle would be the day he was no longer himself, Sauron thought.

_Is she beautiful as we sing?_

_Oh._

_Is she beautiful_

BeautyÉ 

_The faith of it_

_Everything else is true then_

_He provided what, comfort?_

He could not forget the Elf's face. Perhaps it was the fault of the Silmarils; they tend to burn his mind after a while in their presence. Reminding him

They were bright as he remembered. But not more merely bright, they confound his mind, inserting broken figments, like jotted lines in the strange red notebook of his fleshly heart.

Melkor warned him, not to interfere. He warned himself, not to interfere.

It's efficient. The system is efficient. He will be made an orc before the next day. So why did he wish to see him again?

Silmaril reincarnate, the thought came suddenly: unmarred, unblemished, and young enough to know little more than fear and other's opinions and presume their passions as his rightful, at some future time.

Very fair, and of course, fairer than any others he had seen for a long time. Gothmog did not countÉ Sauron let the thought trail off, dressed, and went to find the source of his complaint.

The twilight would have filled the sky rife with stars if they were not in Melkor's domain. Here, the skies were clouded.

Though eyes may differ, however, all Elves glow, some greater, some less.

Sauron felt himself hurrying. He would not be hurt yet, not until the morning anyways, but all those around him would be. They had found, a very long time ago, that breaking the body immediately does not do much, and lengthens the process instead; rather, the sufferings of others around them effect more deeply, and makes them malleable. The elf should not be hurt.

Sweat shimmered on the naked back, and the elf had his forehead against the rock. Stretched spread-eagle, he was yet unhurt, though stray pebbles from nearby had left several bruises.

All around, the contorting bodies of several Light Elves chatted rhythmically of twisted tendons and torn flesh.

The small orc Sauron had seen in the morning sat at the right corner of the square. At the Lord's approach, he stood up quickly.

"Shushluk, excuse me sir. We had not begin yet because the captain asked the lieutenant and he said that we were not suppose to do anything, and this being a curious thing that the elf had no wounds to pick I was just suppose to sit and guard him until the dawn, so please do not hurt me." Shushluk cowered into the corner after that, and Sauron paid him no attention.

He stood behind the elf, and placed one pale hand at the nape.

"What is your name?

There was no answer of course.

"Tell me and I will let you down." He whispered.

They had laughed at him, and then some cameÉ. carried and strugglingÉpast his sideÉeyes widened when they saw himÉ, his arm was broken because they were searching for him and followed the tracks. Now they are going to die because of him, and if he escapeÉthere is nothing more

"Ešl." It was said softly, so soft that Sauron had to strain to hear.

Sauron stroked the dampened black hair then caressed the naked back, pausing mid-spine. In the darkness of the night in Angband, he could see the tears from the day finally falling at night.

Still lightly touching the dark hair, he spoke to the hesitating Shushluk.

"Give him to me.

--


	2. 2

Arms and legs stretched out for so long, Ešl remained in position for a while after his bonds were released. Shushluk hurried up to tie him up with ropes twisted into different knots, but Sauron raised a hand and waited.

Ešl swallowed, wishing that his tears would dry soon despite that it was windless here.

"Sinda of the Girdle?" Sauron's voice was smooth behind him, "Turn around, so I may see you."

Ešl lowered his head before he faced Sauron again. Though Sinda, and accustomed to leafy forests, he was untrained and could not see as clearly as others could. Therefore, Sauron's expression went unnoticed, perhaps for the better.

"Now follow me."

Shushluk hurried forward.

Ešl hesitated; he bit his lip, feeling the unwelcome tears welling up again. He wanted to live, true, but he did not wish to become an orc out of sight, with an elven overlord of Angband. There was something in that fair one's visage that was made to startle.

Furthermore, he suspected that he would march beside the places where his friends were placed.

Against his will then, he moved, as invisible ropes curled up along his waist. The dark figure of Sauron was strangely bright in front of him.

Ešl fell once, but Shushluk held him up, by his will or another's neither knew.

Sauron lead them throughout the courtyard back to his room.

The Calaquendi's stares seared across Ešl's skin in mixtures of pity and pain, and once, someone called out in Sindarin. He had lifted his head at the voice, but met Sauron's eyes instead- silver, like stars and moon.

"Walk beside me." Sauron said, and opened his arms in invitation.

Silmaril incarnate. The tear stained face came close, tangled hair framing aquiline features and wind drunken cheeks. The handsome eyes had closed when he wrapped his arms around the naked limbs; but that did not matter, Sauron had found that black had been ruined; it reminded him of a certain room and a certain balrog's fires.

The doors of white marble and silver marked the abode of Gorthaur the Cruel. Ešl really cried when his feet dragged across the threshold. The stories from his dreams, and other's dream tore through his consciousness in a hurtling flood.

Soft fingers fluttered on his face, and he felt himself carried.

The smooth skin, alarmed yet satisfied Sauron at the same time. Once upon a time perhaps, he would have broken, or stained it without a second thought because it was what commanded of him- for the greater good. Yet there were no greater good now, not when Melkor wore that crown and punished him for wanting it so badly that cruelty must be turned to single minded ruthlessness, which was without reason, and inadaptable.

The tall tower Sauron took Ešl was empty, the Quarters, others had named it. A fallacious foresight built it. At first, Melkor thought that Feanor would join him there and together they would fell Eru from His heavens.

The top of the tower was never complete, so it appeared as if two spires rose from one, yet inside it was furnished with every luxury commendable even in Aman.

Aman, where one sleeps on soft beds without trouble, Sauron laughed, as he gently put Ešl down on one.

The instant seemed to focus onto the single being lying there, naked and angrily tearful, his face barely visible through elegant fingers.

Something struck Sauron. "What was your trade?" He asked.

The calluses on the forefinger and thumb were unmistakable, yet the boy carried no bow.

Ešl lowered his arm and try to draw himself taller on the bed. Sauron smiled at the movement.

"Artist." Ešl answered, pitifully proud.

Sauron lifted an eyebrow and a dim figment of a fantastical Noldo face rushed through his mind.

"Of?"

"Wood and stone."

"You do not work metals."

There was no answer that time. Ešl remembered that he was not allowed not suppose to speak when captured, ever.

"You are in my bed." Sauron reminded him.

As soon as the words left, he knew they should not have, because Ešl bit his lip and closed his eyes again. His whole body began to tremble as he curled himself on his side, presenting his back.

Shushluk walked forward in trepidation.

"Milord," It ventured, and tried to stand straighter as Sauron ignored him, "I was told this morning..."

He sank to his knees as a stabbing pain shot through his joints, his bones stung with familiar sharp needles. He remember what they look like, long as a forearm, and thinner than a thread. They weaved through bones like needles through cloth. Where? When?

Sauron glowered. How dare he?! He swept to where Ešl lay, as still as marble, soot-covered marble, then to Shushluk, "Go draw the water."

The orc fled to the bathroom.

"Stand up." Sauron said, "Or I will carry you."

He counted, waiting for Ešl to bolt, but the elf did not. He sat up, eyes still closed, on the side of the bed and almost jumped at the touch of the carpet: soft as fleece on his bare feet, and wonderfully warm.

"I'm Annatar." Sauron told Ešl, who shot him a rather unelven look. But used to orcs, Ešl's expression seemed as adorable as the cooing Simarils that begged to be touched.

Not a Silmaril exactly, Sauron realized, when the Elf stood and walked. Something similar, less divinely intoned, a more palpable light, though not a blessed one.

"I do not like fire." Ešl said, as he lowered himself into the warm water, preferring to keep his eyes on Annatar then Shushluk, who hovered over him like a wraith.

He looked haughtily at the servant of the Dark, as if daring him to say aught else.

The bath seemed fatuous bright, elegant, and faintly facetious, a sweet smell permeated the steam. Weary, he nevertheless tried to keep his muscles from relaxing. He did not expect Annatar to kiss him on the forehead.

Stung, he ducked into the water on instinct, and was dragged out by his hair.

Ešl winced at the pain.

"Stay. Within. My. Sight." Sauron warned, and kissed him again, this time on the cheek, only because Ešl turned his head slightly. Shushluk was useful as he pinned Ešl's arms on the side. "Or I will really listen to Shushluk's words here and do what you think will happen."

He released his hold, and took his gloves off, unveiling his black hand.

A look of horror followed the route of his gloves, as darkened skin revealed inch by inch. The imperishable crystals kept the room in a warm yellow light, and under that light, black seemed brown and burnt.

Ešl lowered his chin again, "I am sorry."

Sauron did not laugh- but the strain almost managed to rupture every cartilage in his fana.

He patted Ešl's head, unwilling to destroy whatever delusion the elf had conjured for himself.

Shushluk had left sometime ago, they were alone in a bright room: Gorthaur was Annatar, and Mordhel the Silmaril Reincarnate found compassion for a vacuous choice. The setting of a Tirion styled bathroom in the middle of Angband was profoundly appropriate

"I have learned to live with it." Sauron said, and argued fiercely with himself for saying it. Serving the Master of Lies does not mean that a Maia of Aule's following spoke half-truths, of falsehoods, not necessarily at least.

"You look tired," Ešl ventured at length, confounded, yet being young, comfortable with relief of any sort, he clung to Annatar as a fading hope, "There's dust on your face. Should I wipe it off?"

Guilty, Sauron declined. He hated that he loved, and loved even more the fact he hated the quandary because this was purely for his won.

"I will sit here until you finish, Ešl," He said.

The bathtub was large, and dipped low in the risen ground. Annatar stretched himself on the side and watched as Ešl found the tap emitting a perfume smelling faintly of pine.

Smooth skin and sleek muscles, not yet old enough for wiry strength, Annatar wondered if he should not keep Ešl here; he could, trap him in an eternal mist that made the fair form sparkle in a thousand rainbows. Unfortunately, that would not be right. He would not still be alive as he should.

He remembered the Silmarils again. What other liquid substance would Silmarils exude when touched by one as he, but tears. That time, he had been too hurt to notice.

Annater dipped a hand lazily into the pool, and brushed Ešl's skin, from the shoulder blades to small of the back. The elf moved away slightly.

"Turn around, Ešl." He melted his voice into the softest tones, "There are bruises on you that needs tending."

Ešl looked down at himself. "I am fine." He answered.

Sauron sighed as thin shafts of moonlight chose to strike silver sparks off Ešl at that moment. "I just do not like to see flesh worried in my house." He whispered, letting a broken edge creep into his words.

Cautiously, Ešl turns and faced Annatar, whose head was downcast. An image of Annatar's face flickered in his mind, and Ešl found in the memory of that face suddenly something more than elven, Light Elf then, he thought. He had not seen many, but the eyes were the same, bright and piercing, unsettling. He approached, but as Annatar made no proverbial movement, so he did not stop until his knees were almost touching the sides. The scents in the room were intoxicating and there were no windows, he realized, merely thin slivers of glass dotting the higher places on the walls. Mayhap Annatar wanted stars, came the absent thought.

Behind the liquid fall of his hair, Annatar was temporarily bewildered. He looked up, and found Ešl staring at the walls. _Stars, of course, Elbereth, would you ever be the temptress..._

Reaching out a finger, he touched Ešl's nose, lips, chins, shoulders, then down his arms and his chest. Yellow bruises faded as skin mended. Ešl looked at him with a heartbreaking expression of gratitude and suspicion.

Finding a sponge by his hand, Annatar soaked it, and smoothed it down the same living path his finger had took, this time unbroken. Muscles rippled beneath the sponge. He stopped at the notch at the hipbone, but only briefly, before wetting his sleeve, and emerging his entire arm in to follow tracing the outer, then inner thighs till the knees.

Ešl's breathing hitched slightly, warring behind the command to "stay still" every time someone served you and "whatever the enemy does, do the contrary because it's going to cause pain faster if you fall".

"I think you can come out now." Annatar said, "There were more down the back of your legs." He was careful not to mention the orcs, or how they kicked, and threw stones.

Still puzzled, Ešl stepped out of the bath, and found Annatar merely sitting a bit further on the platform of the bath. He took a towel and quickly tied it around his middle.

Annatar started at the feet, going up till he encountered the fringe of the towel, then he bid Ešl to turn around, and went up the back of the legs again.

Without a word, Annatar took the towel off when he met it again. Ešl's hand clenched, and unclenched by his sides, unsure whether he could, or should, knock Annatar unconscious and run out naked into a courtyard of courtyard of orcs.

Orcs...but before he could continue the thought, Annatar's question chased it away.

"How old are you?" The tender points of touch had turned into caresses, from his buttocks to his calves. It felt wonderfully relaxing.

"As old as the sun." Ešl answered, and nearly fell headlong into the water when he felt something wet and warm slightly nibbling at the top of thigh.

It moved from one hip to the other, the slightly pressure oddly pleasant.

Annatar was enjoying himself as Ešl swayed on his feet when soft hands started stroking his inner legs. Standing up, Annatar pulled Ešl toward him. The eyes were filled with wonderment, and the fair face was flushed.

He seemed to crumple into a heap as Annatar wrapped him into a towel and carried him again.

"You are very bright, Dark Elf," Annatar said, before softly kissing the parted lips, "Like the Silmarils, metronomes of Arda." For you are a maker as well

"But they were merely bones, they do not yield as flesh does." Ešl's nude form lay prone onto of the cambric sheets, pliable as Annatar sat beside him, still only delicately touching him.

A whimpering sound emerged from Ešl's throat, as finally Annatar kissed him, slightly harder than before, his tongue brushing the upper lip as they parted.

There was an urge to devour as Ešl's own bewildered, yet hungry eyes and face told him, the mouth broke into lips. Sauron licked down the long column of throat to the hollow there, before moving down to the chest, beautifully pale and unbroken.

Tears of light tastes like honey, and Annatar felt as if the clean skin curved beneath him, wrapping him in its absolution- curious tableau, Eru's creature still. He breathed hotly on one nipple until it became rigid breath it.

Fierce fingers grasped at his shoulders, but Ešl was silent still though breaths became harsher. Divine torture then, Annatar thought as the elf's eyes dilated.

The impulses were uncontrollable, the very perfection of the elf writhing beneath banished every futile deed he had ever dared. This time he would not be claimed by the illusion of temptations. The flash of eyes was a mere mirage compared to the tousled innocence of one who had known only what- stories, other people's words.

Kisses that burned his own mouth, and touches that scorched his own fingers were imparted onto Ešl's untried flesh.

Through the desperation of thoughts and sense all enmeshed, a thousand violent natural shocks spun through Ešl's body until he felt like drowning and flying at the same time. Entangled in only, merely, sensations that he could not see.

Fingers moved stroking his hands, flowing to his chest, to his stomach, then down his flanks. Tremors shook his thighs as silky strands swept down his legs.

He had looked up at the sun once, though someone told him not to. It nearly burned his eyes, so many stars in one. He saw it again suddenly, and the same feeling, tasting faintly of guilt and triumph, the slender tendrils in a brilliant haze briefly brushed him. And yet, the feeling of inexplicable wrong drifted to oblivion as he felt himself strung like a tightened bow.

Notwithstanding his own desires that were merely of his flesh after all, Sauron indulged in the yielding of his own choices. He made sure Ešl did not snap, keeping him on the skirts of consciousness so that each real touch only bloomed into more pleasure upon that shapely form.

"Sleep even a never ending night," Annatar breathed into one ear and kissed his way down again. The handsome black eyes were open, it's lashes beaded in silver tears. It was pleading for something, arms already fallen away onto the sheets, ponderously heavy. Fervent kisses, hundreds and thousands of them placed upon his skin stirred senses unimagined, and then melted together them together onto lips already slightly swollen. "And I will not let you go.

They could not be jealous, they would never know. _He _could never condemn him, for he found his own.

--

In the end, morning found Ešl, the dawn's rosy fingers curling around his form.

He rolled over and blinked twice before sitting up, quite naked, and quite alone.

Lethargy suppressed the surprise of its existence. For once, he could not remember something he wished.

But he remembered he saw eyes in his dreams, many eyes, familiar and strange eyes, some brighter, some even darker than his, carried by scintillating birds that vanished and reappeared even as they flew. For some imperative reason, he hurried after them because his not good enough in the terrible darkness. At length be came to a mirror standing skewed in of a dimly lit cave, and as he ran past, chasing a pair of amber yet shaped like his, he glanced at it and was not himself as remembered from liquid pools of the mountains springs, nor from the wine that the court of Doriath drunk. The astonished shape of the mouth seemed crueler at the edges, sharper, like a cold blade.

A stray lock of hair fell in front of his face, and as he reached up to push it away, his fingers inadvertently brushed dry lips. Heat flared up on his cheeks.

Ešl sank down into the pillows, and covered himself with the sheets.

Lying supine there, with the faint light drifting in through the pink cambric, his skin was sanguine tinted of reddish shadows and he did not wish to see it.

"I am turning into an orc." Ešl said to himself, then again, louder, and louder until he almost screamed. The muffled sound rang inside Sauron's quarters

It didn't matter anymore whether he kept silent. He was not even questioned. No one escaped.

There was a tale he heard once while eavesdropping in the kitchen, trying to pilfer some honey-cakes. It told that within darkness, you see what you wished, though none of it was real. All the beauty and the ugliness were mere illusions- and every time you believed, the darkness chews a bit of you off until there was nothing left. Then, you become part of the darkness yourself, because only the body died, taken away piece by piece, and we are more than bodies.

Remember the taste of honey cakes, remember the scent of Nellas's hair, remember the melodies Daeron made, and remember Menegroth of a thousand caves, remember the captains whom he adored. Ešl felt himself slipping away as morning melted into afternoon then night, dimming the light in his cave.

"Dress," Someone said, "I am taking you to the workshops.

Ešl stayed still. By remaining here, at least, he would be Ešl, kin and Cupbearer to Thingol a while longer, resisting to his last breath the horrors he learnt as an child. His bed in Menegroth was just as large, and just as soft. It would be good to die in his own life.

His fingers nearly broke as someone yanked his pink cover away. He stared a bit forlornly at his empty fingers. He always liked them, they were slender and shapely and people kissed them quite often because they were so lovely.

Sauron looked exasperatedly at the elf staring past him through those hands with no sign of compliance. The vacant gaze bothered him, a bit too akin to breaking.

"I am not going to eat you, and I would not give you clothes if they are going to be torn off you again.

"You would perhaps like that," Ešl murmured, "I have never read anything concerning it, but it does not mean it does not happen. In Menegroth we

"In Menegroth people run around with no clothes on," Sauron finished for him, "Very well, but **I** wish you to dress therefore you will, and I promise you that you would live to see the next dawn.

He threw down a pile of gray into Ešl's lap.

"I would not have orcs tramping in here again, but I can take you out and let them dress you there.

MannersÉmannersÉborn and bredÉEšl muttered his thanks.

--


	3. 3

The company he knew he kept prevented him from opening his mouth and smile with happiness glazed.

A secret wish: if a workshop could ever be clean, therefore new, then Ešl would claim it as his- impossibly impractical in Doriath. And Sauron knew from the way the elf was trailing one finger over everything with a dreaming expression on his face instead of being stoic and bearing himself haughtily in front of his captor.

"I will teach you metal craft, and you will learn it.

In the flush of excitement and familiarity with the shape of the chisel in his hand, the boy busied himself in choosing a small block of burl wood. Ešl tilted his head, and a small braid wondered down his neck.

"Why?" He asked nonchalantly, biting his lips as he tried to find a stylus while he mentally gauged the depth needed.

"Why will you learn it, or why I will teach it to you," Annatar paused, and hand it him one, "Or why metal craft?" Ešl caressed a soft cloth of velvet lying upon a stack of its identical twins and froze suddenly as if a dream turned cold.

Sauron opened a door, and the rush lights within blazed, setting an inner room alight.

There was furnace, though unused, with stores of coke and coal standing within silver inlaid scuttles beside the anvil. Cakes of wax stood high on a table.

"I will not make weapons for you, nor instruments of my destruction." He said, looking at the rake and the peen hammers that hung on the wall.

"Very well, make instruments of your pleasures then.

"They say too much pleasure corrupts." Stupid, he thought to himself and noticed the slithers of a warm orange light had organized itself into perfect circles on the floor.

Sauron bowed slightly, and stepped closer, obscuring one of them.

"Whatever you wish, Ešl. This place is yours when I am not here.

In another brief and mad, moment, Ešl considered taking a poker, or perhaps a hammer, and escape. This time, at least, he was dressed. He could even take Annatar hostage, he would tell the orc to let him and every elf leave, and then what would he do with Annatar? He could leave him here, and Annatar would be punished, as he deserved. Yet knowing this, Ešl was indignant if he fell as low as the orc he would become

"Not today though, I have matters to attend to. Stay or leave here as you like.

Annatar's voice startled him from the temporary reverie. Ešl's fine face had clouds chased shadows and blushes across the almost transparent skin, a very beautiful study- vaguely sentimental, just enough to be romantic, and prone to the maudlin madness that took Feanor.

Pleased to observe him under a more indifferent illumination that cared not for the moods of Angband's lords, Annatar marveled at the play of light on Ešl's brow, his eyes, and his young lips: as old as Anor, as were all the Sindarin who desired the silver fires of starlight more than anything else. They did not count years, or the stars, preferring to stay beneath their light asleep in their waking dreams if only circumstances allow. Like him, Sauron thought, almost too much. What wouldn't he give to have thoughts into physicality without the stinging pain of toil. He looked at Ešl again, whose attention had wondered, with his very young artist eyes, confusion, wonder and curiosity still entangled. Everything.

Shuffling lightly as he walked toward the door, he smiled at Ešl with a singular sweetness that startled the elf, and left.

Then Ešl realized that Annatar never answered the question. And in his heart he knew all would be all right if he only knew why. And yet, one would consist another, and then another..an infinite series of questionsÉinfinite twisting bodies outside this tower where he slept a night and half the day away in a bed as good as his own.

He did not want to think.

A piece of wood, barely as large as his hand took shape beneath the tapping of the chisel, and Ešl painted it: yellow beak, body of blue and silver hued wings. A slant of sunlight fell across the one natural eye and made the wooden grains appear as gold.

With one hand holding the small bird, the elf walked toward the windows. These were larger here though he would still not be able to climb out, and standing behind them, he could feel the cool air, akin to the feel standing in a tall tree. Outside, the clouds bled purple and red; he could not see the ground.

Once again, a sense of helplessness assailed him, along with all the apprehensions of the inevitable. He knew, or he could imagine, what would happen to him. Despite all the promises Annatar could make, all the comforts he offered him(and denied to others), they were nonsense- merely play on words. Fair forms and manners could still serve as vassals to lies.

Picking up an iron nail, his hand scraped against the frame as he dropped it into the pool of clouds and must below. When he heard nothing in return, he sang.

Every Sinda possessed the ability, they have been in here a long time after all, and within the Girdle, where life and joy reigned, every child had played under the twilight with everything in the shadows as playmates. Ešl sang of Doriath of the sweet smelling night-flowers, of the majesty revealed of Menegroth for the first time in the morning, the leafy forests, and the soft touch of rain, the dews upon the leaves that were as rainbow pearlsÉ..Anyone, anyone for help. If he had a rope, he could climb out. Angband ends where he was: the stench at the gates was not here- the slight darkening of the sky was not here.

And out of the distance, something flew closer.

Ešl kept singing, his breast rose and fell a little faster, watching the bird flying toward him. He could see it, and knew that the bird was not a creature from the shadows, for its eyes were bright, and it flew with an unusual grace.

Each feather on the wing became visible before it disappeared.

The shock left Ešl speechless. He squeezed half of his shoulder out of the round window and looked left to right, then up. He thought it might have dropped, so looked down, and saw the clouds as before, though darkening with twilight.

Nothing.

And it simply could not be an illusion, right? Not that

Ignoring the pain on his shoulder, he leaned against a shelf and slid down, full with weariness and grief. Almost weeping, yet not quite, for he had cried all his tears away on the bed.

With a cry of rage, he stabbed the chisel into the wall. It made a small dent.

The air thinned, and Ešl opened his mouth to breathe. He stood up and took a hammer, striking it full force against the wall. There was little sound, but the wall broke slightly under it. He swung it again, and the concavity widened. By the fourth time, it was the size of a hand. At the eighth, it remained the same as it were the seventh.

He picked up the small effigy of the bird and stuck in his pocket before walking out.

Ešl rang the hammer against the outer edge of the entire floor: one bedroom, one workroom, and some impenetrable locked doors, which he tried just in case.

The stalwart partitions refused to give way, and seemed to mock him. Plaster and paint fell as his hope went up, then all would just come to a stop no matter what he tried.

With the lighting of the first crystal and the last sign of Anor disappearing from within the tower, Annatar was back, and stood with a smirk on his face in front of his elf, who was panting slightly with exertion, holding his knees in front of himself.

"You cannot expect me to stay here." Ešl said, glancing up.

---

"No," Sauron said, "I do not expect it, because you will go to the bathroom and clean yourself up," He walked closer, and bent down to that defiant face till their noses were almost touching, "I trust that you have exercised enough for one day.

The elf was livid, and yet the two faint blooms of anger were clear visible. With Sauron so close to him, he could neither stand nor shift his gaze. There was something strangely, horribly, tangible in Annatar's presence, as if all the air around him suddenly disappeared and pressed thick like a shroud near his body so he felt its weight.

"You have no authority over me," Ešl said, and his eyes would have twisted metal if he had seen the lights, "And I must make an attempt, let me go.

"But you ARE mine, and thereforeÉ" with a sudden movement, he grasped both of Ešl's wrists, lifted, and locked them against the wall, wrenching a cry out of the elf, "My hospitality is here for you to accept," Sauron continued amiably, ignoring the distorting expression, "Did you think, even once, that you would leave those gates once you entered? But you wanted to live, did you not? And I gave you thatÉI am not your enemy, Ešl." One hand on the wrists, the other stroked the boy's head, from hair to cheekbone, lingering a bit to touch the fringe of the dark lashes. Noldor dark, Sauron noted with a certain satisfaction.

Ešl turned his face away at the touch though it did nothing to still it. He spoke in a whisper to the far end of the room.

"Because you spared my life when it is you who are taking it in the first place?"

To his surprise, he felt himself freed; at least, his hands. Annatar still stood too close for him to move properly so that his hands remained above his head even with nothing holding onto them.

"No, because you have nowhere else to go." Sauron answered, and stepped back, watching blood smearing as Ešl rubbed his wrists: blood from the elf's palm, not his wrists.

"I can go home," Ešl said, "I have been planning to go home you know." He smiled, but it was a weak smile, one from habit, an abortive smile, as the elf remembered to whom he was speaking.

Yet, he followed Sauron to the bathroom, where the waiting lukewarm water and the scented oils brought up terrific memories. He looked at Annatar, almost pleadingly, every sense of helplessness betrayed in his face and trembling fingers as he disrobed. He knew what was terrible in that fair face now, it came to him as Annatar laid a fresh suit of clothes on the bench nearby; he had looked up at him with mirth, and a certain disturbing appreciation in the gray eyes. It was the awesome power radiated from the strange lord of orcs, a power far beyond what glimpses he had of the Light Elves. For the first time, he wondered at the "sort" of Annatar.

Sauron watched, almost contemplatively, as Ešl stepped up, and sank into the water. Running his hands along the floral carved sides of the bath, Sauron paused briefly, and noted teardrops falling into the water.

"Don't cry," He said softly, "There are no windows here." And did not understand why he spoke, though Ešl did, for he stiffened in waiting.

With a sigh, Sauron tore himself away from the view and left. He held Ešl's bird-figurine in his hand as he stood outside waiting, sentinel and goaler.

They all want. The nature of the artists: hold their own, guard their own, jealously. He would give it back to him.

Ešl's hands were bleeding again, when he came out still vaguely damp and smelling of autumn leaves, though he tried to conceal them behind his back in tightly clenched fists.

"Do you want it back?" Sauron asked, and held the painted bird, wings open, in his hand.

"Yes.

"Take it.

"You can keep it.

"And why would I want it?" He watched Ešl lower his head, and said more gently, "Let me look at your hands. The walls in the bathroom do not take kindly to climbing I take it.

"No." Those startling black eyes burned anew, and biting his lip, Ešl reached out and took it by the wing, so that blood would not harm the paint. He did not protest when Annatar's fingers wrapped around his hand, when the wounds closed with a stinging sensation, or when he led him to a small fountain in the entryway and had him there on one of the many soft benches that lay around it- rendering the his body and senses to useless ecstasy.

"I am very poor," Ešl said earnestly, sitting on the bed afterwards, nightshirt slipping off one white shoulder, "For I am dead though my fea cannot go do Mandos where happy memories dwell, imprisonment being as irrevocable as death.

"Is Mandos not a prison, is your memory not prison Ešl? Why then, do you fight soÉ" Then, without waiting for an answer, Annatar lightly pressed his lips to Ešl's forehead for a chaste kiss, "Goodnight, poor elf, I will teach you metal craft tomorrow."

Graceful in all his angles and curves arranged in natural art, Ešl was utterly relaxed even as thoughts become ponderously heavy when a soft scent invaded his mind, driving all else away.

He would lie in slumber, without dreams.

And yet..and yet..Sauron marveled, musing upon the selfishness and the generosity of the artist within him, tracing the point of an ear as Ešl slept, tender eyelids closed- just because, we can never let them go.

--

Even when Tilion's chariot traverses the skies, bringing faint memories with its silver edge, cruel perhaps, to some, the work in Melkor's corner of Beleriand continued.

We gave you everything. Everything was mad, everything a choice- fate torn asunder from the fea of the Elves from the notes of the music. As Gothmog remarked once, we gave them what they what otherwise would not be able to see.

Personally, however, as Sauron walked with the balrog, the image and feel of Ešl vivid within his mind still, he thought that beauty is a high price to pay for stupidity. Those renewed had trouble even learning to walk properly. But then, perhaps they die before they could walk without the craven slouched form, fast as they may be compared to other beasts, still too slow for the captains' liking.

Passing a chamber of murk, Gothmog stopped, and spoke.

"Why do you wear this form, why do you not wear the other one, the one you preferred?

Sauron shrugged thick velvet clad shoulders; "I do not wish to sully it by coming down here." It was true; his face was now grimy with oil and dust that clung to his skin like small parasites.

"Or perhaps you wish it to keep it for whatever you are having in the Quarters.

He had not thought of that, and laughed at the suggestion. Flames licked warm around his soft boots as Gothmog came to stand in front of him.

"Who is it?" He lowered his voice, "What is it?

"My amusement, not yours, dear balrog. Once is not forever.

The red eyes narrowed, and in the darkness, a dark tint of green glared through. Then, abruptly, shadows swung aside again without a sound, and they moved on in the depth.

At length Gothmog started, and halted again at the entrance of the cave, where the moon came through in a misty light.

"He is leaving Them here." He said, and the slight emphasis on the word sent a jolt through Sauron's arm to his fingers. His hands clenched spasmodically.

"For..,

"The Second Children of Iluvatar, awakened in Hildorien. He is going after them.

Others were coming behind him, and reluctantly, they moved to the outer border of the board so that the muffled screams would not disturb their whispers. The ragged hedges beside them filtered the broken view of a dark stream.

"You would be in charge, Gorthaur, of all of Angband. Milord." Gothmog nodded, almost imperceptible.

Sauron scoffed, wishing for the graceful defiance of his elf.

"And somehow I was not privy to this?

"Our Lord knew you were otherwise occupied with more important matters," Ventured Gothmog, "We conversed during the latest parlay with the Feanorions- they are desperate, and the Second Children would not be suspect even later on when our Lord succeeds in his stealth." There was no question of "if".

"Second Children?" Sauron asked, and suddenly heard a faint resonance in the air.

"So Thuringwethil tells," Gothmog added sotto voce, "They fear the night." He came closer until they walked abreast, shoulders touching slightly.

And for some strange reason, Sauron thought about Ešl, his young and strong body, helpless as a sleeping figure in the dark room, and worried.

Gothmog was Feanor again when his breath touched Gorthaur's neck, but Sauron did not see, and parted ways with him at a crossroad.

--

Days pass like years in Angband, and minutes longer, especially when the stomach grumbled for what nourishment it could procure from the irritatingly small morsels of fruit.

Annatar sat by the bed with an expression that could be taken for contrition if not for the subtle shade of excitement around the corners of his mouth. He held a plate in one hand, and the other was sticky with the juice of passionfruits. Ešl eyed both the sweet wrinkled purple rinds and the golden Annatar suspiciously though he ate without protest. Three days without food did not allow hunger to invade his flesh, but there were other things that made him uneasy, the persistent odd tingling, not yet pain, every time the other's skin touched his for example.

"There are marmosets in Doriath," He said between swallows, and as his host seemed to take no notice, continued, "My friend has one, it sleeps in her room and eats at her table," He glanced sidelong at Annatar, "Quite unaided.

"But you are not a marmoset are you?" Ešl's tongue slipped out and touched one of Sauron's fingertips, withdrawing quickly.

"No," The elf replied, "But the farmers also keep sheep and feed them flagons of wine before slaughtering them." He put a hand up to wipe away the liquid at his chin.

"Let me," Sauron interrupted and dabbed Ešl's lips, disregarding the thoughtful look on that young face and said: "I am not giving you wine however.

"Unfortunately.

Sauron arched an eyebrow and paused his motions.

"Wine and elves do not do so well together, and I would not give it to one so newly came of mere physical age, Sindarin or Telerin natural propensity or no.

"So you feed me like I'm a child," Ešl insisted, and his fingers clenched on the bed sheets, "An elven marmoset, a petÉ" He glared at the silver eyes that appeared too bright during the day fell silent, contemplating at the vivid luster within those orbs.

A treasure, Sauron added mentally, mine, and nonchalantly washed his hands in a basin nearby. Wiping them dry with a towel, he turned around and whispered in Ešl's ear, pressing himself close so the boy seemed to lie down again in his effort to avoid the contact.

"You need to keep your strengths up if you want to continue in your strange whickering. I do not wish you to faint while standing near the forge fire." Sauron said, and slightly licked the side of the face, right over a sharp cheekbone.

"I do not like fire, and I was not laughing.." Ešl said, and sighed: having a vague memory that he said it before. The touch was not enough to entice, but it was very very warm.

Two arms went under his and held him in a tight embrace and he was hauled upwards into a sitting position.

"Reason?" Annatar asked, and divested Ešl of his nightshirt before commencing to dress him with the elf sitting partly in his lap.

"They burn.

"That would be the point I suspect. But hopefully not you, so I'll be teaching you how to stoke one, to manage one so that its sough listens to your will.

"Must you? I do not wish to learn." Ešl's eyes widened, and his fair face was screwed to such an expression of utter misery that Sauron laughed. A sudden glimpse of the elf doing the same many times before and succeeding in the face of grim elven lords came to his mind.

He bent down and kissed Ešl's down turned mouth, bringing one hand to stroke the dark hair.

"You must, this is an art of forging metals.

Sauron lowered his voice, tying a golden belt around the middle of the tunic, "Do you not claim to be an artist?

It was unfair, he knew, but when had anything been fair when it came to him. One thing he had learned in his long sojourn since the first bar resounded in the world, fairness is the limiting ideal of the perfection of thought; therefore, it does not exist. After all, why did Morgoth aim to stray from Iluvatar's tunes which called to existence everything- Ea!- it was unfair

Look to the origin for the purpose.

A faint demurring from the remarkable living treasure caught his corporeal eyes and Sauron's thoughts were lost as they turned from the irrevocably gloomy pondering of his choice to one who is almost wholly innocent of it all -so lost and focused at the same time- like Feanor Feanaro Curufinwe Finwion Mirielion artist warrior living fire

And it was so very foolish to see fire in one and not all the others. The Moriquendi's eyes were filled with that divine fire, indeed, he did not even to peer closely to see it even in this brilliantly Valinor colored room. They were fools, to know nothing of potential, to recognize nothing that slight tempering and refining could accomplish.

"Ešl, come with me.

The elf stood and though his face was set in grim lines, the slight excitement in his step and the tremulous curiosity of his eyes he was too young and of the wrong kind to conceal.

Of the same stamp certainly, to survive all this.

"Perhaps you are a memento left to the darkness, an evolutionary equivalent in a sense, though younger, so much younger." Sauron mused, hands placed quite firmly upon the other's shoulders, very aware of the sudden tensing of muscles.

"And why should you be tense?

"Because you should know that I am going because I have nowhere else to go." The amused tone made him release his hold, and he was far more contented watching the form moving freely, darting surreptitious looks at their surrounding.

The walls seemed healed and bore no trace of the battering they had before. Ešl noted as they walked past and entered the gleaming forge. Its immaculate appearance was still faintly disturbing, more so because he wish to be the one to render it into a different state, and in his opinion, a far more suitable one.

At length, amidst the flare of heat and orange shadows, it was his turn. Oil and water hissed in a barrel beside him.

There was no choice, Ešl reminded himself.

"Imitate you?

"Imitate," Annatar narrowed his eyes, and a confusion nestled itself into his features before quickly chased away by the more familiar strange idleness, "Yes, of course, imitate.

Something was clearly troubling the other, Ešl paid it no heed. The leather apron was thick and seemed to weigh him down, as much as the gloves though with an effort, he managed to insert the iron into that mess of light, and uncovered a triumph there as the heat seemed so very close, almost consuming him in its embrace.

The heart of the fire is not empty, though it is the hottest there: ash and coke, ambers aglow.

A damp layer of sweat clung to his body, and his muscles ached with joy as he brought the hammer down the softened metal. A pain wrought his sinews aflame as he found a sympathetic friend in his loneliness. Entirely shot with lingering shadows, he and fire both, turning to each other, all-exploring.

Curiously, Sauron felt no more than a spectator as Ešl worked, the grand aesthetic of the scene charmed him to such that he melted into spirit, forsaking his tissues as Ešl forgot about him.

Annatar did not touch Ešl again that night, or any of the nights that Ešl labored in the forge.

He let him sleep, and watched his slumber, finding respite in the gentle rise and fall of the pale chest and the gradual shaping of flesh beneath the covers.

--


	4. 4

He left again, leaving Ešl to his own musings, and food enow.

Everything he wanted, everything except the sight of the stars around him. They were framed and seemed to hang, sometimes precariously upon the high walls as if liable to fall.

The softest and most elaborate fabric clothed him, the daintiest dish fed him, and still there was no wine. But he hardly cared anymore.

He had a chain. It was long and strong, and it was complete, with all the contraptions he thought would be necessary for his venture. His secret.

The terrors of the entryway had faded into oblivion; an even more ardent emotion replaced it. As Ešl lifted his eyes, hopefully at the silver handles and its locks, he sighed, the sound mixing with the merry bubbling of the fountain behind him.

Difficulties of unlocking the doors came to him even after his fear lost itself. Annatar had a key, that much he knew, but the other never slept and despite all the smithcraft he had endowed upon him, he had not been taught how to bend and place light into glass yet.

Sometimes in nights, out of some perverse pleasure, Annatar would show it to him, detailing all the slight etches and notches upon the apparently smooth metal body and the secret of each facet upon the crystal at its end, promising that one day, he could be able to create a replica. What irony- to create a replica for his freedom. Wrestling for it had proved futile and the indignity had gotten to such a point that he broke down and wept after perhaps the twelfth time.

The tears had burned down his face, but so had the words. Annatar never showed it to him afterwards. He had stood up and left without a word, leaving him there, alone and forlorn upon thick carpet.

Ešl realized that Annatar did not know what he was doing when the latter returned several days after in the morning and kissed him until he fell into a swoon after bidding him "Happy conception day".

Time does not exist here, and whatever was said, it was. The immeasurable strength, the mystery surrounding the Dark Lord was of little importance if he could not escape, escape to the sounds that must be ringing, singing outside. Everything was always so silent here save for himself.

The building was almost alive, if he closed his eyes, it would repair itself. Three days and he had stared at the window, daring it to fix the broken frames and the bits of plaster, which it did not.

Annatar did not return this time.

Securing one end, and so sure that there is freedom in the other side, Ešl swung himself out and began his descent. Out!

The wind whipped around him and clouds swirled so that there was a sensation of flying. He could neither see his hands in their holds nor the form of the walls.

What a wonderfully cloudy day, he thought to himself and indulged in the thought of being rained upon. Droplets of moisture clung to his face and hair from the clouds, and from a distance, he could see an eagle coming closer.

It swerved away from him, but that did not matter. Squinting slightly, he could see hills and even mountains raised tall in the distance, their verdant only a little marred by the clouds he was forced to see through. Notwithstanding, the snowy caps beckoned him, like so many bright torches showing him the way home. Menegroth, Menegroth are beneath those rocks

Once a long time ago, he was lost with Nellas in the forests. There had been bright torches light outside his house marking a blazing trail in the dark. They followed it and arrived home before even Beleg could reach them.

Ešl smiled at the memory: the image of his family and friends and their thankful expressions. Justly scolded afterwards, he was happy to be home. It had been cold in the forests where even glowing night flowers took on a menacing face.

They would be happy to see him again. He does not remember how long he had been away, but the first night he laid on that bed, he wanted to go home, away from the confounding place where his fate was orc.

Each step more hurried, each leagues completed faster. Then he stood on air.

He stamped his feet, thinking it was ice beneath his feet, some evil weather working against him. Locking his ankles on the chain, he dangled upside down and his own startled face stared back at him.

The surface was cool beneath his touch, and it was unmistakably silver: his own form and the sky reflecting in its view. The hum of the metal as he knocked against it showed itself to be impenetrable. Desperate, his heart fiercely pounding, thinking there was still a chance, he turned his head, still inverted and found a slant in the view that seemed strange. It appeared that a curl here and a line there were out of place, fractured.

His legs gave way, and he fell sideways, crashing against the hard plane. Bits of ice, for there was ice in the clouds, bit into his cheek and it stung.

"Elbereth GilthonielÉ.." Ešl cried, standing upon the mirror glass, ignoring the pain, straining to see the hills and see the ground seemingly so near, "Elbereth!

When no answer came, he knew then, o how he knew. Everything.

Gritting his teeth, he climbed back up again, his hands almost slippery with blood.

He will not die, but now he wished to. Then, not in the clouds, not in front of that dead deceiver at least.

Numb, he struggled upwards, the distance surprisingly short, as if the very walls reduced in height to receive him into themselves again.

When later in the day Annatar returned, he found Ešl crestfallen, buried in the pillows and blankets.

Laying a gentle hand on the heaving shoulders, Annatar sat himself down.

"It's a mirror trick. All of it. The hills, and the skies, and the flying things in the airÉ" Each muffled sound a blow.

A terrible face, bruised and bleeding greeted him.

"I am not going to be turned into an orc am I?" Ešl whispered fearfully, another plea in his voice.

Sauron looked down into eyes terrifyingly empty.

"No." He answered, and reached a hand to touch the elf. Ešl shrunk away and curled into the farthest corner beneath the canopy.

Annatar retreated, leaving the room, leaving the tower, into the ground he went

What was amiss in those eyes? Sauron turned his eyes to the eyeless roof of his dark cavern.

Stars.

Now Sauron knew, in his deepest heart, Ešl is beginning to fade. He was afraid, because the thought hurts.

--

Of Hildorien little was spoken.

But now Melkor spoke of it.

And he is going, leaving to seduce the newly awaken Second Children.

"Why?

"Why?

"Why?

The voice echoed in the hall, pierced by the light, incongruously loud, even though it might have been just thought.

"Allies." Gothmog answered, the foresight strong in him, "Great allies. We shall not regret it.

"They are weak, newly born.

Gothmog quirked a smile in his Feanor form, he scarcely do without it now, finding special pleasure in the shocked stares as he paraded within Sauron's domain.

"Ah, but the potential, and they are so anchored in their hroa. Mortals," He chewed the word carefully, considering the flavor, "They have an indomitable life force in them in order to survive, and they can never fade even if we do the most despicable things upon their bodies. In part, stronger than elves, though not as hardy at the first glance.

Sauron refused to look at him.

"The Sons of Feanor wishes another parlay," He entreated the figure upon the dark throne, "And they are full of artifice, there had been heavy losses.

Gothmog shuffled back, his handsome mouth twisting into a sneer. He turned to Sauron.

"We lose theirs and win theirs, do you know that sorcerer? you the progenitor of all those.

"And as a parent, suppose I should be hurt by that accumulating tollÉ" Sauron replied, "What do creatures of wild do when their young are hurt?

Clearly confused, the Captain of the Balrogs turned his head and implored his father.

"I am leaving." Melkor declared again, the resonance of his tone deafening.

Rushing forward, Sauron knelt down and placed his hands upon the black iron greaves.

"No!

He stared at nothing.

"Gothmog shall die, at my command." Sauron muttered.

"I am leaving." Melkor said again, hardly more than a whisper, to him.

"Yes milord.

Thuringwethil flew as a shadow passed the archway and reluctantly Sauron left his place by Melkor's feet.

Melkor plucked at his iron crown, tearing at it with great talon-like fingers, the Silmarils' light was as a blessed arc in the air.

It was the second year of the First Age.

Annatar is Lord of Angband, and all the Silmarils are entrusted to his care.

But when he held them within his hands, they were silent.

--

The tepid water slid down, leaving the broken skin behind, making each line more vivid so that the smallest cuts appeared as fatal gashes of color.

He bathed the grime and blood away from him, but not the bruises nor the various small wounds.

Ešl refused to allow him to mend the crisscrossed injuries, shallow and deep that marred his skin.

"It does not matter anyways." He said, watching the ragged lines turning black from the invisible poison in the air, "I am going.

"No you are not." The vehemence shocked Sauron, but the words were true, specious voice and face be damned.

"How would you stop me?" Asked Ešl coldly, looking away. All over, he hurt; as if a thousand cold needles were working his flesh, and acid were poured onto his joints from the inside.

The light, soft as it was, make him want to shut his eyes. However, the explosions of colours don't end, painfully dizzying in their iridescence. And all the colors were cold, blue and white and terrible green. His entire body was sore, as if his fea decided that the hroa is not worth it anymore and was straining for flight, rather unsuccessfully, like him.

It had been possible before.

"You would stop yourself. The virtue of you being here would do that for me." The words were so soft that it eased into the addled scheme of that stormy mass of lights and half-lights and echoed within it.

Someone held him, and he was floating, wrapped deep in the rich fur of something. A million little hairs tickled him against his pain, and dimly, he could feel the shape of his naked body.

"I want to fly." He said, the words harsh, grating against his raw throat. Maybe he should not have screamed for Elbereth so loudly, or for Eru. He had strayed into the wrong music, drifting in from some unfinished measure into a violent change of mood.

The visage of Annatar was as it ever was: handsome, impassive, almost lazy, the effect spoiled by the hard eyes carrying an enameled quality. He turned his face away from the sight.

Red, orange, yellow and variant shades in between; the warmth of the corridor struck and burned his vision, and tears refused to come and blur it. A cool hand descended and touched his brow while his head ached, pounded upon by blunt metal tines.

"Does it always hurt so much?" Ešl asked, before everything fell, "Before Mandos claims us?

Annatar's head lowered to peer at the luminescent skin and the damp curls of hair that tangled upon the perspiring forehead. The air of Angband holds the Black Breath, every space suffused with it, and now Ešl refused for his injuries to close.

Dying, dying

The idea occurred that the elf would eventually venture escape. The consequence were always unpredictable, and he had failed to consider. Sauron saw the brief flicker of light within Ešl's eyes before they were quenched. Sounds roared within his ears, the crashing of tides against cliffs and he remembered that the nature He gave them, not even his children could know, just like His, His will, His music, still solely his.

The lips had parted, emitting faint puffs of breaths, too faint.

"It depends upon the manner." He answered.

Tightening his hold as the blank black eyes fluttered shut again, the long lashes resting so peacefully, Annatar tread upon wind and stairs, and mixed matter in his swiftness.

He never knew elves could fade like this, he had never seen it. He heard of how Miriel laid down her life in sleep, he knew the Quendi tenets and limits, he witnessed failed experiments of his hand, but he has never seen it.

Never seen it because it never mattered before, there had been always more.

Symmetry was never so appalling as it was in that moment. It went against his very nature to find it so. The perfection of spirit he thought he had attained crumbled, and maybe only crumbled because he was Maiar, and furthermore, a Maia who took part in Melkor's rambling tune.

Up the winding stairways, banisters exquisitely carved, he took him on top the unfinished towers with the half-completed roof. The rocks and broken pavement crunched beneath his feet. Kicking the loose stones apart, he knelt, and arranged the drape better to shield the elf from the fierce winds.

"I am going to show you the stars," He soothed the figure within his embrace, "You want to see them.

In the vague haze, Ešl heard the mellifluous voice. Straining eyelids to open, yet all he felt, all he saw, was a great cold.

Live or die: death was ever an abstract, like what would happen if one became lost outside the girdle.

The skies were dark, but Annatar promised he would see the stars. Then, surely he could appeal again.

--


	5. 5

The dusty silver of the moon scattered on Ešl exposed face, glinted off skin and hair and casts gossamer threads of light into the night.

Quivering with those visits from Irmo, fitful dreams ran tremulous within Ešl's mind manifesting in the agitation of his limbs, wrapped as they were firmly within the thick fur.

The somber heavens loomed over them like a great shroud and only the edge of the crescent moon was visible. As Annatar beheld the high winds on the roofless tower and the unrelenting thick clouds that stormed in the firmament, he heard voices culling wanderers.

Then the body within his arms stilled, and against his chest, the other's heartbeat slowed as if into a drugged sleep. Furrowing his brow, Sauron turned and inspected the sleeping face that hovered, on the edge of two lives, overly vivacious for one or the other. And beneath that haphazard wavering, uneasiness of sleep lay like a pall upon the mist toned features that attempted to avert his feathery touch. The serrations on the forehead and the cheeks had began to heal, light pink lines draped across Ešl's flesh like many little silk strands taking measure of each line and slope of the face.

A world that consisted only of the shape within his arms, of the wonderfully curved mouth, the sculpted nose, and the dark lashes came into view and drifted off again, as sudden as it came, and all the world was dread, frozen as the million tiny icy crystals that echoed the sound of the winds within their clear bodies.

Even as he traced Ešl's face again with his eyes, a shudder in him for each breath, small icy rocks plummeted down, cutting the healing skin. A thin rivulet of blood, black in the silver shadows flowed into the slightly parted mouth.

Annatar looked up, the stones beating down upon his shoulders and face, their sharp, sudden weights ringing through his senses.

Hail.

Clear white and gray, some melting upon contact, leaving droplets of water behind while others crashed and exploded like glass, covered the ground like some arcane and softer snow, smelling faintly of a great weariness- vaguely bitter.

He held the passive figure and moved toward where the granite flagstones were unbroken and the marble pillars raised tall and unblemished. The rafters were done though unfilled, parts of the roof were unadorned while others retained frescoes that saw the weathering of time and the vengeance of Valar's domain.

Sporadically, Ešl would draw a sharp intake of air but otherwise, he slept, dreamt, and what those dreams were Sauron dared not to guess. A brief flash of jagged rocks left a rough horror within his heart and he would not think anymore.

With a quiet strength, suddenly uncanny, he lowered the elf onto the ground. Sauron arranged the cloak better closed and bent his head above Ešl, shielding him, and felt the tiny fists of the ice upon his head and shoulders.

Manwe's powers still do not infringe upon the border of this corner of Bereliand, claimed before time, so Sauron drew the elements around and gathered the fabric of the air into a tighter weave beneath Ešl till it was as stone. Then, he tugged at the tendrils floating ubiquitous in Angband, and broken from their confines, they moved, carrying them along the way toward the empty sky.

Stepping upon invisible steps with an invisible pedestal of air before him, higher and higher, passing the hail and the rain, Sauron felt the ground shrinking beneath them as they entered the clouds, heavy spray that parted at the subtlest touch.

And why

Perhaps he worshipped himÉgestured as an offering to the stars

Upon the rigid surface of the air, images ran in his mind and fonder his heart grew as a silence enclosed them in the air, above all the mortal and immortal cries that haunted his nature no matter where he goes. He heard only Ešl's breath, Ešl's heart, Ešl's voice that whispered jumbled syllables in his dreams.

Surely it was too terrible, this complacency in the frozen sky, and surely too mad. The colors of the clouds swirls frozen, as if they were blind etchings for spectator delight. Blank darkness stared pitiless and Ešl was nestled within, almost entirely still.

They rose higher into the sky, the invisible stairs building, sturdy beneath his form, but there was still no hint of stars visible even as the air cooled.

Frost attached them to Ešl's hair; Annatar brushed them away from his fingers. They gathered on his brow, so his kisses melted them, washing away the blood that had gathered on his face.

The brief moment of horror passed, that terrible foresight of seeing him lying broken and dead alone in the wilderness where none could reach. But there were still no stars, and Ešl's lips had become pale, almost pale as his face. Sauron kissed those lips, and placed his hot tongue inside the unresponsive mouth.

Hands gently rubbed the precious bundle, slipping inside and meeting satin skin. There, they massaged, stroked and caressed, movements rendered half desperate between worry and unstoppable pleasure. In some half-dazed state, the entire mantle fell open and draped across the boundaries of Sauron's magic.

The clouds thinned, the reddish shade of Helluin adding to the hard glitter of the moon, fell across their faces. Shifting until he lay on his side, yet still pressing Ešl's body close, Annatar murmurred into a delicate ear. Presently, the light of the imminent Calarcirya reflected in the black eyes.

"Do you see? Do you see? You wished for this..."

The flesh under his fingers was beautiful to touch, its utter reality ravishment in itself. Abruptly, Ešl's eyes met his after a while: familiar spirit, dissimilar gaze.

"I wished," He paused, his voice barely audible, "Would I have everything I wish?

How do you ask me this, Annatar thought, as his palm drifted down the naked form, the muscles tightening and loosening under every touch, when you lie within my arms?

"Yes." He answered. In the lofty air, our phantasmagoric imagery sublime...

Ešl laughed, softly, in his own way, though his present companion had never heard it before, therefore unable to detect the weary edge, "Why am I here?"

An errant wisp of hair flew down to his eyes, but the wind lifted it, and another hand came to tuck it behind his ear, and then stroking the skin from the point to the tender joint between shoulder and neck.

"For being an artist, for being Mordhel, for being a manner of unnatural perfection." A smile curved Sauron's mouth, "For having an eternally kissable mouth, for your dark locks and dark eyes, still unspoiled and untainted. So young, dear Ešl..." He had lain on top of Ešl, one of his knees nudging the other's legs open, and kneeling, pulled the elf to sit upright against his chest, glad to hear the rhythmic beat of the heart against his own.

"You know, seeing stars is different from being able to think that you can snare one." Ešl said, almost fey with joy at seeing them, gently, insistently moving away. But he clutched tightly at Annatar's form when he realized where they were.

"Do you want one?" Annatar asked, leaned forward, and kissed the tender skin above the collarbone, one palm splayed against the naked back lest the elf should tumble down, disappearing into Angband beneath, and the other stroking the smooth chest, moving down.

"I want," Ešl swallowed, "To see the light of the stars whenever I wish." He bit his lip to stifle a groan and a bitterness broken forth from his still tender lip.

"As you wish." Sauron replied at length, fascinated with the enraptured expression of the other as it cried upwards to Varda's canvas.

Blood dripped through the clouds from the abrasions from the ice and they hovered in the air as frozen crystals, faceted pink diamonds.

Below, Gothmog saw the unnatural dews, the brief flashes of wind-swept bodies, and for one sudden absurd moment, he wished his wings were more than shadow.

--

The casing stars twinkled with mischievous fierceness, throwing sharp rays through the abjuring clouds. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, wishing to swallow the moment even if it may taste of cold bitter air. Failing that, in the imprint of the night behind his eyelids he could fancy thin needles of light striking his skin, for which's nakedness he was inexplicably glad.

Gasping once, ever so softly, amidst the revelry of being bathed in that flood of thoughts and sensations mingled into one, he felt the touch of a fingertip on his arm, then an entire hand. A hot breath on his neck drew him back. Sauron trailed the finger up the arm to rest on the cusp of his ear, brushing away a flake of ice. Ešl shuddered as it slid down his shoulders down his back followed by a hand that smoothed its path until it reached his waist.

It was warmer now, the elf realized, he had been so cold, and so oddly formless that he felt he would fall apart if not for the tiny hairs that pricked his skin, but now his neck hurt from staring up for so long. If he just looked ahead, he could pretend that he was alone, merely sitting on a treetop and gazing outward into the distant night.

There was a particular tree he loved, he sat there at times, wondering what was out of Doriath, whether any of the stories he heard in the squares were true. The noon sun hurts his eyes but upon the daybreak he would be there, letting the dew damp his garments as he climbed the thick boughs. And how he loved mists, he could pretend he sat in the sky, with stars almost near enough to touch.

The memory pulled at the strings around his heart. It was not merely home he longed for now, and it hurts that he did not know what.

"Stop." He whispered, but a poor tear spilled over and hung precariously at the edge of one eye.

Annatar considered himself kind, never cruel, those were other people's words. Ešl had lowered his head, a mass of shadowy hair falling and hiding his face.

"Lie down." Annatar soothed, warring with a terrible desire that welled up within the depth of his being at seeing the elf so grieved.

The stars were torn from Ešl sight, melting into patches of color as he was pushed back into the fur again with Annatar's cool shirt pressed closely above. The clasps dug into his skin while the studs of the buttons at the collar seemed wanting to pierce it.

He lay very still, very confused, and a bit afraid. Then the weight was gone. The warmth at his side and across his chest told him that he was embraced, rather tightly against Annatar's body.

Turning his head, he saw a gleam in the other's eye before feeling a heat flaring running down his side after a caressing hand.

"There we go again," Ešl thought, a bit sulkily, the mood manifesting in a pout that disappeared under moist, supple lips covering his mouth without a sound, tugging all the air out of his lungs.

But it was wonderful to be kissed like this, when did not need to think and the other clearly enjoyed it. Sauron gloated for a while afterwards as the elf gasped happily for air, watching the flushed cheeks and the swollen lips, the fresh cut opened and bleeding oozing a horrible attraction. Half lidded dark eyes beneath the thick lashes seemed so passionately oblivious that he averted his eyes to roam across the graceful planes that were Ešl's flesh. Pure and untouched by any other being, the muscles were slight and shapely beneath his hand and yet they yielded so easily.

Scarcely a hair's breadth away from being able to touch it with the lines of his lips, he fancied he could taste the delicacy of Ešl's loveliness in the heat exuding from the fair skin. Smiling, he dipped a tongue into the hollow the elf's throat and proceeded to cover the graceful neck with darting kisses, each pulse of blood precious beneath.

Clothing were discarded and thrown down the sky in a swirling path. The velvet cloak fluttered as they hovered entwined high in the air, concealed by the heavy clouds that hung dark and foreboding from a distance.

Ešl hands touched the golden head that careened down his chest in the company of lips and tongue, sending edges of pleasure glimmering through his quickening blood.

"Comely like a star," Annatar said, caressing and stroking the top of Ešl's thighs until they parted of their own accord, quivering slightly, "How kind of him to make you immortal..

His mouth traveled down Ešl's loins and rested against the smooth skin between his legs, kissing and nipping until bruises began to bloom on the tender surface. The slightest touch of tongue against the soft tissue between his thighs provoked a moan and a tremor that ran down the length of the elf's body. Another, and Ešl was arching up desperately, the taut muscles of the torso fiercely visible, straining against the hands around his slender hips.

Planting a series of careful kisses across the lean stomach, Annatar trailed them up to the perfect expanse of the chest, and swiped his tongue across the rims of muscle while incoherent words and sounds babbled forth.

Smitten with the heated flesh, the almost passionate embrace as Ešl's hands ran down his back, his own fingers exploring each line of the delectable body he made possible. And tasting it, biting one shoulder, his teeth broke through in the moment alongside a keening cry. He pulled himself up against the beguiling throat, dizzy with the soft scents in the other's hair, clean and cool, whispered an apology before nibbling on the lobe of one ear. He traced the tapering delicate edge with his face and felt the soft pointed end against his cheek as his hands danced and stroked across the collarbone, lips following to the juncture of the neck and shoulder and sketching upwards to the awaiting lips.

The dark eyes, darker than the night, were wide and looked at him with inky fire, made elaborate by the starlight's reflection, and Annatar was struck suddenly by Ešl's beauty, how fragile it was though he knew it would never fade. The air sank beneath their weight, made malleable by his will.

Ešl remembered they were in the sky as he peered into the riddling eyes of Annatar. The long hairs of their fur-covered bed were tangled within his fingers as his veins tinged with the tides that threatened to engulf and drown him in yawning pleasure.

Darkness had fallen even deeper, like an elegant dream that coils forever in his mind, and the gleaming stars were fading before his sight.

Intolerable touches painted him all over with small aches and fires. The light brushes, the sweet promises of lingering kisses pulled at him as if he were being taken to even smaller pieces. In the vagaries of his wondering mind, he did not he exist, so featherlike the caresses were.

"Do you love me?" He asked, eyes shut, the mutiny of colors far from reassuring as Annatar bent and caressed one tender eyelid, his dark hand stark contrast to the exquisite pallor, as if the elf had never seen the sun.

"What?

Distracted, all movements ceased and the night stretched around them. The paleness of a finger, resting on his white wrist, the soft corner of a smiling mouth became uncomfortable, heartbreakingly poignant.

"I am not going to be turned into an orc. I am to have everything I want

His voice pared into a groan. He wanted a name for it.

"Do you want me to love you?" Annatar asked, knowing that his answer could be snatched by the wind. Yet the heights had fallen silent, waiting.

Ešl tucked the temptation into the depth of his mind.

"No.

Annatar winced.

"Well then." He commented.

"But can we go north? I want to." Ešl insisted, and leaned forward and bestowed a kiss on the side of Sauron's mouth.

Annatar withdrew slightly and shied away from another. Seeing the hope in the elf's face, his muscles was suffused with a mysterious pain that had nothing to do with his body's waning passion, he was far too unused to fana perhaps.

"Home." He said, and rolled onto his back, holding one of the Ešl hands against his chest.

"Home." The elf agreed, and Annatar could not bear to hear it anymore. Something was going to break.

"Pity Manwe does not love you then.

He felt the hand clench in his palm, the knuckles smooth and standing in sharp relief against gentle furrows. Tentatively, he traced them and in idle thought, learned that Ešl would never be able to hold a fist easily, so slender and long the fingers were. There had been a sharp intake of breath, but now all was silence. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the movement of the elf's breathing.

The night had quieted around them and his words rang incongruously clear as he continued softly.

"We would not be welcomed. Not this way, not that far. No one enters the high air of Arda without the permission of the Valar. No one confronts an Ainu in their own demesne, the Music had laid down borders for such things before time.

_And you will not let me die, knowing that that the temptation to live is too great that we could not turn away from what is in our nature, Ešl thought._

I cannot go back.

"And this is not Arda." He said, each word sharpening focus until he fancied that he could see into the morning sun at a coming time.

"This is a dream.

Of course, a dream, and he could see everything so clearly, himself in the naked embrace of a Maia, in the heavens of Angband beyond the rules of the Music. Ešl opened his mouth to laugh, but found that no sound came, so he said instead: "And no one leaves a dream unchanged.

A long caress drifted down his person, glancing wisps, tracing the contours of his body with tantalizing haziness. Tendrils of dark hair, russet blonde in the day trailed down his collarbone pursued by soft kisses that tickled all the same. Ešl's cooling skin warmed quickly as the firm and unnatural mass of the Maia rested briefly, always only briefly upon his bare breast. In that passing moment, he struggled, awkwardly shoving and twisting until a cautious kiss quieted him, his neck cradled helplessly arching back.

The fey gales, growing loud to his heedless ears, pushed and shifted, and in a blur of motions, air rushed beside him and out of him. As incendiary fingertips ran down the length of his thighs, circling inward and leaving merging blazes in its wake, Ešl rolled out of Annatar's embrace with a strangled gasp, snatched out of the comforting cradle.

It did not hurt when he fell, indeed, his descent slowed as the clouds began to thicken but an icicle broke against his neck, and there was a sudden streak of pain, vanishing even as it came yet the arrest of movement sent him into shock. Immersed in a shallow blanket of spray, the unforgiving pools of water gathered in the valley of his back. Ešl stared downwards, and saw the pitch beneath the graying clouds, the illusory of Arda, he thought distractedly, shaky from the chill.

Two strong hands turned Ešl around, and an embrace in the eddying air thawed the winter that had culled around him.

"I wish to see your face." Annatar explained, sliding his hand in the starlit hair and rubbing down Ešl's back as they pressed close together, "We would see the dawn here." He dipped his head to blow warm breaths at the tapering ear, drawing the ends into his mouth, provoking an unsteady rhythm of moans until he trembled silently, his face turned into Ešl's neck and all too sensible of the downy skin there that stretched marvelously across the pale pulsating throat.

He lapped at the blood on the fresh wound, its iron tang desperately fine. Reckless, Sauron moved toward the supple lips before slipping his hand down to the tumescence between Ešl's opening legs. Mouths yielding against the other, Ešl felt the thrum of pleasure as the other's body became impassioned, meeting his own, their smooth skins sliding against the other in an increasingly frenzied rhythm, close and clinging tightly.

In the end, the lone impulse of delight, seeing the elf flushed satisfied, breathing deeply and reclining suspended in the sky beside him with eyes only for the violent stars, made Annatar vaguely uneasy. It was entirely too appropriate somehow, and he had not had the feeling in a long time, and knowing it, he chuckled deep within himself.

--

The next time Ešl left with his consciousness from the wandering paths, the soft pink pillows delicately cushioned his face and the sheets were a tender presence upon his naked skin. Then he discovered that everything was not all right after a night's sleep. He turned onto his back, his muscles riddled with small agonies, sore with loneliness perhaps. From the arcs in his feet to the arcs within his ears, a curious sensation resonated within him as if he was hollow.

The world was full and he was hollow, and the knowledge was suddenly bright and clear. The silence around him told him so and he wanted it gone as he stared at the ceiling of the smoothest and mind numbing white. He wondered how it would look for anyone who would chance to see him lying there while the wide shafts of the light struck bars of shadows on the carved bedposts. But there, his train of thoughts stopped: of course, no one ever sees, other than Annatar, who would sometime pretend that he did not see and at other times look at him with such an intensity that he found his eyes burning as he met the gaze. The sun would rise, and he would lose that mad game, closing his eyes and watching the dance of bright dots behind the fallen darkness instead.

The red curtains of the bed fluttered easily in the wind that even now, smelled of a sunlit ground. Ešl breathed. A whiff of that and he imagined himself as hard as impervious glass. Less, he would collapse from the silence.

In memory's haunting, the ghostly scenes and people flashed before him, their voices echoless silvery bells.

Yet, the old nights had mingled with newer ones, for the stars had moved. He dreamt of Annatar, his face and his voice and his hands.

Too fascinated and horrified not to remember- the brush of words against his face and the brush of lips against his neck- Ešl existed because of them, and it was terrifying. He could be transparent, formless, gone for all the others but not to the Maia who would perhaps love him if he wished.

He was very aware. Each shade of color, every curve and angle of the disarrayed bedclothes, and every sound, except there were none save his own breathing and beat, beckoned and tempted, crying with the comfort of dreams.

And such a dream... Dreams, he learnt while a small child, were what the world should be. The glance at the setting sun caused his stomach to contract until it hurt, and the bright orange creeping ever closer on the bed made him shudder. This was not how it should be, surely. The sun does not change its path but it was already hopelessly entangled in the memories the first time he found himself within the black gates. And what did he see there? Ešl closed his eyes and buried himself deeper into the blankets. Beautiful beatific past no longer just his own, and the thought filled him with a loathing he never imagined possible.

Even loathing was pointless.

Furious, he threw back the covers that had been previously tucked under his chin. Parts of it pooled on the floor but he paid them no attention as he pulled on clothes that he had to learn to wear: tunics with ornate clasps, low collared shirts with no fastening at all, belts made of links of silver and gold, and thin light shoes that turned at the ankle. He felt formless in the loose clothing, walking felt like parading.

There was no past. He wandered the halls. There were no mirrors, so he could not even trace his features to the faces in his memory. When Ešl looked into pools of water, the spray of the fountains disturbed the image.

It bothered him that he never realized it before. He had no mementos. As he passed the workshops, he cursed Annatar for being the sole reminder. Ešl, he called him, the Sinda of dark eyes and dark hair, who was not yet full grown as the Light Elves would count it

"I am here. I am flesh," He repeated to himself, but found that he could not say his name in the litany, "I have father and mother, I am a son. I have friendsÉ" His voice trailed off, then a little while later, he whispered in little voice, afraid, "They still know me," half a query.

Water within basins of marble does not answer. It bubbled on merrily.

Mindless, he headed for the stairways he saw in a turn of a dream in which he fell down again when reaching the last step, the stages smoothing over.

He found them, as he saw, and it was different. Ešl leapt over the fallen stones nimbly, climbing when needed, and quite determinedly, quite, only slightly in trepidation, stepped onto the last stair, and with a burgeoning relief, found it sturdy beneath his weight.

Out from under the bartizan, it was the sun, and it was the currents of air. He could not breathe, his heart having stopped his throat. So close to the sky, he wanted nothing of it, except perhaps for Anar to reach down and catch him as he stood in the middle of the dilapidated field of stone.

Walking precariously along the edge of the unfinished battlements, his shirt flapping in the wind, Ešl attempted to look down upon Angband, the sun beating warmth down his shoulders. Standing taller than all the others, the roofs of the watchtowers, he fancied he could also see the red points of the spears. But beyond that, merely clouds. The grounds were invisible. Extending his sight into the distance, rapt, he saw a small shining glare coming close, a cluster of stars moving across the land.

And out of the corner of his vision, something caught his eye. Scarcely knowing what he was doing, Ešl picked it up and beheld a piece of tracery- a dazzling vibrancy of colors that mimickedÉ light?

--


	6. 6

In the middle of the room is a table, made of hellwrought iron for its legs and smooth dark granite for its top, upon the table was a box, and in the box were the Silmarils, the greatest treasure the bowels of the earth had ever held or will ever hold at once, save for nothingness itself.

No one can see them. No one can hear them. To touch them would be to die again perhaps. Nonetheless, he did not plan to touch them.

Darkness merged into darkness and deeper dark, the glitter of movement the only light.

Hard edges are nothing in the embracing shadows, and tendrils of cries, perhaps existing only within the undercurrents of a mirror life twisted around his being in a pleasant motion.

Who would question him? Who would dare to?

No master of creatures needs eyes. Sight was too objective, too demanding in a realm where instincts should rule, the compromise of all wills.

As spirit he passed, scarcely seeing, yet knowing, clearly, each shift in tone, each shift in movement of the familiar places of his reign. He wondered that he knew he would never forget this even if all may fade, this simple journey.

Stones and gravel, smooth and rough, mud and stone, he could not feel, not while he travels thus, yet he imagined the grit beneath his boots, his shoes, his feet bare, and knew them to be real.

O the light, he brought them into the sun, which was brighter with Angband's strength and cowardice gone. And from shadows to air, he is gone, invisible.

A faint temptation, or rather, another temptation, molded a hand's form, and with it, he hid the box, the light within it. He is Maia after all, made of Eru's first thought.

The Silmaril's pulse, beat in sync with the pulse of his thoughts.

He wished to open the box.

They told him to. At least, it is what they would want.

He could see the wings that would lift them up in the air.

He could see the burning gathering, growing, until they blazed out of his sight upon a single point in space.

Yet he would not. That was not the purpose, and purpose meant everything. The practical illusion melded into reality, urging mettle for the last trim of threads, the final weaving of a comet's tail.

There was the place where he lay, there were the armies marching forth, and there was the cleared space where he lay in restless dreams. We have seen, the cloud in his works, the stars and sun and dearest memories, his labor betraying his mind, as art must its creator.

When Ešl beheld the Blissed Lights while dreaming on a blanket upon the roof of a tall tower under the twilight sky, he could not move.

Under the gaze of the Silmarils, he was trapped.

--

It was wrong. It should not have happened. He could not even comprehend the impetus- the unnamed wound breathing within desire, a compulsion of a kind that was at once contrary and imperial. Annatar could not see the music, and yet it was there, bearing them all afloat upon it.

The elf's head had turned to its side during sleep, and out of nothing, the light was an impossible flare, too bright against the twilight horizon where he wandered and whiled his days.

The first infinitesimal change in Ešl's blank, dreaming eyes of returning awareness turned his expression unspeakably tragic as the perfection of his form was rendered in a white fire while his face burned into Annatar's mind in one quick, demanding curve of the blade.

"Mandos," Sauron swore, and would shut the box if he were not so besieged with the beauty of the moment. In one world, when the light was not so special he heard the snap of the lock as it closed. Here, he felt the hard distinct emblem on the heavy lid, fanning out in smooth curves and hard edges beneath his fingers.

In the second change, Annatar saw the world crumbling. The black of Ešl's eyes turned to likenesses of shadow, made pale by the fair glimmer within them. The broken wall, the burning roof and tower poured out into Annatar's vision, driving it into itself. Groundless, soundless, pale silhouettes tangled together upon a white bed in a darkened room before a great fire engulfed it in one swallow. An image of blood dewed plants: petals and leaves laden with incarnadine ambushed him in one fearful spectacle. With a cry, he fell back, a blinding pain running from the tip of his finger to the center of his chest.

Before him, before the jewels, which were snug and blustery in their perversity, the elf knew that fate turned its wheel and spun a thread. He saw it clearly as he felt it, the strand entwining with strange others, filigree strings brushing past.

He could not see, and the faint recognizance brought him nothing more than a stronger nostalgia, no more than an absolute vision of bliss, already sharpened by the years, now once more, and infinitely more whetted by the million little bright knives. But Ešl could not discern that he was no longer he had seen it upon Melian's face. That had been a reflection in her eyes and face he saw, but now his eyes and his face were the mirrors and he bore the full brunt of the Blissed light and the artistry of the Quendi. He hurt.

A face looked out at him, but he knew not whether it was his face or someone else's.

"IÉ" Ešl opened his mouth and his throat was so dry, his thoughts so meandering, as if the light was another kind of sun, crueler, desiccating him.

And then it was gone. The light was gentle, a soothing presence that blanketed him even as Annatar's shadow swayed and fell across in breaking opaque.

"I sawÉ" He tried to speak, and his voice startled him. It was too loud, too soft, too low, too high, he could not control it.

Carefully, as if to a fragile wood, Annatar pressed a finger upon the lips and shushed Ešl.

Perhaps he expected to meet glass instead of the softness he found, perhaps he expected burning heat instead of the gentle warmth, and perhaps he expected nothing at all. Annatar splayed his hand upon the firm flesh and bone, cupping Ešl's face and saw the shadows of indentation on the skin. Moving to one sharp cheekbone, leaving his blood in its gentle wake, his fingers traced the features anew.

Ešl's appearance was greatly altered. How, Annatar could not tell, could not describe in words, would not described in words as he furrowed his brow, matching line to line, point to point, to images engrafted in existence, this tableau of the familiar stranger, forehead to chin, dabbed with spots of pink, which were brilliant red before meeting the elf's fair, fair, skin.

What divine tragedy turned his expression so inconceivably subtle, impossibly hale? Irony could also be beautiful.

"Do you drop out of the sky?" Annatar asked, entranced within the shadowy eyes that though sharper, would never pierce him, "Do you appear beside the waters as a flash of thought, or were you there always, and He merely tore the film from our eyes?

The elf smiled, though a bit confused, and he was of faint gold.

Dawn was here.

Ešl drew a long breath as Arien finally matched that light, still a covering warmth around his body. Now the world was in comfort, the Silmaril's too; they saw kinship in the sun, and sighed blissfully, their rhythm relaxed.

Annatar bent down and kissed Ešl. All amazement, all wonder, awe, and anguish: regret curdled pungent in the maia's mind as he tasted those lips, too surprisingly naturally sweet.

"Am I myself?" Ešl asked him before Annatar seemed to vanish again into his own reflections, "I cannot think, that I am different. Yet I am, from the core of my fea, I sense it." He sat up, and stood, legs only slightly unsteady at first.

They were standing now, looking out into the field of rolling clouds, and Ešl discovered that he could see further, clearer, it was if glass made every single color, curve and movement. Each line was startling in their precision, and nothing blurred together.

"There are words for what I feel, I don't know them. Every one of my senses perceive meaning, I want to know it," He said, speech becoming easier by the moment, "Those jewels, that light, within that box," He looked at the trunk on the ground lying quite brilliantly alone as an incomprehensible puzzle, "Did their owner live here once upon a time? Is it your emblem?

"No," Sauron paused, their shoulders touching "Though I suppose, I wish it was.

"He made them did he not?

"Yes, and more besides.

"Strange, when the light dimmed and yet did not, I thought I knew him." Ešl's fingers drummed against the battlements, wondering. The stones scratched his fingertips, and he could feel it breaking into smaller pieces with each tap on the surface.

"Really, and how?

"It was as if life, unbroken, flowed ceaselessly through me, and in things they were in a pervasive plan. I knew that it was there. That all things have their places, and I would know of them. A foreknowledge for all time, because I think," The elf bit his lower lip, "At all time's end, it will be as if an infinity of dreams came together and realized.

Sauron thought of the tragedy in the air, born out of Ešl's expression as he beheld them, without choice, in a plan.

"They are in my keeping, those jewels." He said.

Ešl heard him, but it hardly seems important how that treasure was obtained. They existed, and in that lay the importance.

"What is your name?" He caught Sauron's elbow as it moved away and held, tried to hold.

The firmness of cloth reassured him. He did not wish to think of what he knew, that Annatar was Maia, only a spirit and of unearthly mettle. Ešl had never felt so bound as he did in that moment, so helpless enamored. The fear that resided deep in the recess of his heart had magnified, now it crawled into the spaces beside of his heart and made it twinge and throb with each breath.

"I cannot tell you." Annatar replied, knowing what he asked.

"You have forgotten it," Ešl said sadly, and softer, "I do not wish to forget mine, nor anything else at all.

Annatar vanished within his grasp, turning insubstantial for a moment, but the same hand appeared soon again on the elf's shoulder, "I am sorry.

"I am sorry too." Ešl said, the twinge more intense, more painful than ever.

"And what would you do?

Ešl turned to look at Annatar. "What can I do?" He asked earnestly, voice full of dawning hope. His chest had constricted and now he felt nothing.

"Why, free yourself." The maia answered.

"But I cannot be myself when I am so changed. Where would I go?

"Did you not want to go home?

The elf lowered his head and considered the words.

"You would let me leave?

Annatar laughed, and threaded a hand into Ešl's hair.

"Would you have my permission?

The words disturbed him, as did his movement, leaning forward to rest his chin upon the other's shoulders, feeling warm arms encircling him.

"I would have you come with me.

"Wherefore?

Because in all this dance of light and dark upon my being, I know no one but you, Ešl wanted to say. He pressed himself closer into the embrace and closed his eyes, because I am afraid of all those things that changed without me knowing them.

--


	7. 7

There was the fire again, the spontaneity of its sounds and shape very much alive. The heat was constant, if limited, flushing his chest and face with warmth while his back ached with cold. Winter had seeped into his tower despite the strange walls. It came through the small windows, through the door beneath the bartizan that he would forget to shut on purpose. Ešl needed to breathe.

He liked the blustery winds as they whipped across his face, the snow as it drenched his clothes, the world white around him and the sun a pale yellow yet still strong enough to melt the snow between the grooves of stone into running rivulets at noon. The water was cold, and when he immersed his fingers in one of the pools, his knuckles turned white around the edges though he felt no pain.

By night, the water turned to ice, the air biting every inch of skin, burrowing beneath the thick cloak he wore. He could stand all night outside, listening to the creeping of ice across the dark sky, but he would still feel nothing. Insensitivity seemed to be the price for endurance, and he did not know whether to be glad or not- made hardy though not himself as he remembered.

Winter in Menegroth meant blazing hearths and feasts with mulled wine, and people: such voices, and such songs. There were fewer worries in winter, when skirmishes and battles were less common and the warriors and the guardians came home.

Ešl sat inside the forge with the furnace ablaze, the tools lying peacefully on the anvil, an empty trencher haphazardly balanced on the edge.

He had a piece of wax and was slowly kneading it with one hand. In a picket line behind him stood finished and half-finished works, ill-formed statues that he had a mind to destroy except that they reminded him of what he had been. His hands were more sure now, he could see straight lines, absolute circles, and form material to his will more easily than ever.

The chill at his back was almost comforting; he could wait forever like this, sunk in reminisces. Someone would take a blanket and wrap his shoulders with it, bidding him to leave the elder's company for his bed and gentle dreams. Ešl always said nay, but then he would gradually nod off, and next morning he would be embarrassed that someone had to carry him to his bed and apologize for this trespass of the dignity of the King's household. The stern gaze of Thingol softened in those moments, and remembered that he too desired a child to put to bed and tuck in at night even if they were as old as this kinsman, who was scarcely out of childhood despite what the customs say. Ešl of knew none of these things, but the Queen's beautiful voice answered him, that the berth of the household's dignity could withstand sleepy young elves quite well.

He stood now, the memories of things tart in his mouth, the bitterness stinging his eyes. Turning slowly, almost lingeringly away from the fire, he placed the wax on the shelf nearby before his gaze turned toward the entryway. His hand jerked suddenly, and the trencher fell to the ground.

An elf, streaked with blood and dirt, was looking at him with a frightening expression. Droplets fell from his face and flakes of snow clung to a mass of dark hair, his face looked gray though purple bruise was gaining ground on a cheekbone. The wild stare was bright and undimmed, and there a vague air of appraisal in it that was disconcerting.

"I have been watching you," He said slowly, voice low and musical. Ešl could not move, pinned in place by a sharp confusion. He realized what was so frightening in the elf's features, fair despite the grimness- the eyes, very wide and unblinking, they were bleeding as if the other was crying blood, "I knew you had to be here. I saw you, a mere glimpse from the windows, off those accursed mirrors.

"Why did you not come?" The elf asked, a desperate whisper, "I thought you were dead. We all did, we thought you had turn to ash, so the rumor was. Your brother is less kind in sharing his secrets than you ever were."

Even if Ešl did not understand the words, which he did not, the tone of resentment was clear at least.

And when he gave no answer, the elf moved closer, his walking shadow dancing in the firelight on the walls. The metal around his torso and his arms flashed beneath a dark cloak.

"Feanaro! Feanaro Curufinwe!" The elf called, his arms extended and his palms upward, supplicating, "We knew it could not be true. We knew it even as we knew that you would never betray us, but live forever, the flame of Eru undistinguished for the Noldor. Feanaro even as your mother called you, even as Curufinwe our beautiful craftsman.

Then to Ešl's amazement, the elf dropped to one knee before him.

"I..." He bit his tongue, the pain freezing speech. His fingers tingled to touch the bent form.

When the elf looked up again, his eyes were filled with tears. It ran down his face, melting the flakes of snow and the look of drear frost on his cheeks. There was no blood now.

"I know you would not forsake us. Your sons wait for you still! Such horrors, milord, we have endured in search of you. Helcaraxe proved a sore trial. You should know that we would follow despite all you may do; you should not have feared the rumors of treacheries among us, those loyal to the House of Finwe would not have stood for it. Spare not a thought for the cowards who heard the whispers from the doom Morgoth deceived. Your sons now guards the lands of Bereliand, we smote against the very gates of this place, did you not hear us?

"SonsÉ" He understood that word at least.

"Dearest Prince, milord, we must escape.

"I do not remember." Ešl whispered to himself, and shook his head dazedly.

The elf sprang to his feet, so quickly that the air in the room shifted, turned warmer, and was pervaded with his scent: full of earth and brine.

"The foul air has clouded your mind, an illusion is what kept you here. Do you fancy yourself home? It is not so milord, for this is Angband, the vile fortress in which evil dwells incarnate, where Morgoth builds his army and keeps you in this prison of tricks. FinweÉplease.

Angband. Ešl had almost forgotten that word, where he was. No one said it to him and he had not cared to say it himself. It does not have a pleasant echo.

His hand was seized suddenly in a fierce grip, and fiercer kisses were placed on them. The skin tasted warm beneath the Nololinde's lips, and the feeling shot a burning heat ran through him. He had been cold so very long, waiting, until he saw through the time of the change of guards from the Northern fringe, the reflections upon the mirrors that hid the small door from view. He and a small group of others alone had remained while Nolofinwe withdrew their people to Hithlum. Spies, surveyors all, yet he doubted others knew of his suspicions- they never saw the shifting sneer of the Balrog, of Morgoth himself as he loomed as a great shadow safe inside his fortress.

Nololinde saw everything. He kept the libraries in Valinor. He wrote the libraries because his eyes rendered differently of what others saw, another kind of perception, born from his amber eyes perhaps, that sketched the world in bare lines and sudden patches of color. The surface of his vambrace dug into his skin as he held the fine muscles and the finer bones of his lord's hand tight within his.

Ešl, startled for a moment at the contact, but he loved, loved the intensity of the kisses, of the emotions that twisted inside him. Gently, he touched the elf on the shoulder. The elf rose. They stood, different comprehensions in their faces. Then clasping each other's arms, Ešl leaned closed and their lips touched. The fury of the clash of teeth as he pressed forward stung and drew blood from their lips, flavoring this single kiss. Tongues swirling hotly against the other, Ešl felt himself drawing the other into a close embrace, and he was heedless of the metal pushing sharply against his clothes.

Nololinde did not expect this, but he knew the necessity, had seen it many times upon the ice, in Endore- forsaken in grief. A renewed hatred flamed his heart even as he returned it strength for strength.

Their mouth drew against each other until all the air was gone. Breathing harshly for a moment, forehead to forehead, bright eyes companionable, Ešl licked his lower lip and pulled away, almost afraid.

Wordlessly, sensing the time, Nololinde grasped Ešl's arm and pulled him out of the forge.

A thick cloak was placed on a chair outside, his own, Ešl noticed, and put it on, self-conscious in each of his movement as the other elf looked warily about.

This time, he followed as they began to walk again. They slipped out under one of the stairways, dimly lit with small white crystals until they met a wall. Ešl wondered then, but the other walked on and he followed and the wall seemed further. Two steps, and it would still there, as far as away as it was before.

"Mirrors." Nololinde whispered without looking back. His hand was on the hilt of his sword. The entrance was a bright glare around the corner of a corridor and there they stopped, Nololinde because he was trying to determine the time of the day from the thin ray of sun that struck the muddy floor, and Ešl because following the path of the sunlight that glanced off the metal clasp of his cloak, he could tilt his head and see himself; at least, it must be him.

Mouth dry, he swallowed, stared and touched the cold plane of the mirror, tracing the features of his face. He could cry, for only those were the same, and yet, even then, the eyes that studied him with a meticulous air were no longer dark with the glimmer of starlight in them.

The moment passed even as he realized other things, the fairness of his skin, the strange, subtle peculiarity in his expression; the sound of the grating of metal against stone provided the excuse for turning his head away.

Pausing upon the threshold, Nololinde considered. Then drawing his blade, then another, silently, he laid that in Ešl's hands. In his left hand, he held a white knife, the point glinting. Nodding, and a silent gesture with his eyes, he went out and Ešl followed.

They kept to the walls as well as they could. Ešl's feet trod firm for the first time in years. It was snowing, and the ground was beautifully pale other than the yellow eyes that flashed briefly in front of Ešl, before everything fell apart.

Before he cried out, he saw them emerge from a distance, running, some falling in the thick snow.

Nololinde despaired. In all his calculations, he had not accounted for the sporadic movements of nomadic troops in winter. This was a large one, a warparty, and it fell upon them wildly with a certain excited raggedness and disorder. A cross-cut across the throat, the first orc fell soundlessly, but there was more behind them, one after the other, driven by a tired desperation that reminded Nololinde of the faces of his kinsmen upon the ice even as he quelled the distasteful thought with a vicious stab.

Twin blades flashed quickly in the morning, and the white ground became gray within their sights. Utumno grumbled beneath them, but they could not hear the sounds.

His blade bright with black blood, he went on, and Ešl fought beside him as well as he could, his arms finding a strange rhythm in the strokes. Orcs did not fight very hard, he realized, not as they did when they took him. Swathed in path of blood, a great burning cloud fell the scene in front of him and everything was silent. Nololinde ran toward him, but the creature brandished a whip that curled around the elf's waist and drove him to the ground. He fell into Ešl's arms, and the armor was sticky. A hideous wound leaked onto his fingers, and when Ešl looked at his hand, the viscous liquid flowed down the ice crystals between his fingers and painted it a clear red.

The orcs that had disappeared returned, their claws dug into Ešl's shoulders and hauled him up. A rope was thrown around his neck in a tight noose and his arms were yanked back and tied.

"Feanaro!" Nololinde cried, rough hands pulling him away from Ešl.

"It is not him." Gothmog replied in Quenya, Valarin accent especially pronounced, his form diminished to a dainty elf with of shimmering wings that caught the dazzle of snow, "I know because I killed Feanaro, your precious divine fire, reduced to the dust beneath my feet.

He danced a bit, stomped the earth twice and thrice with light feet, the unsuitable merriment cutting in Nololinde's heart.

"I do not believe you.

"He is not. Ask him. He does not understand your tongue.

The elf did not turn his head to ask, but Gothmog threw a contemptuous glare at the Sinda. Ešl struggled against his bonds but he did not speak, guessing that he should. He could not, not when he did not know what to say.

"Feanaro is dead, gone to Mandos for eternal torment, for his treachery against the Valar. They are not kind, you know it when you heard the doom they put upon you.

"I do not believe you." Nololinde shouted, dared to scream in the face of Gothmog, "Foul fire of Morgoth! Liar and servant of a liar!" for the last time ere he was taken away.

Ešl waited, frustration pent in his muscles. The ropes chaffed his neck and his wrists, and the orcs' fingers had claws that pierced layers of cloth into his flesh. He watched in horrified silence as the shadows unfolded like great wings

A beast, a balrog breathed on him, its flames flickering burns on his face. He felt raw.

"So here you are," It said, and cocked the great horned head, the eyes, two great pupil-less eyes gleamed like emeralds forming in heat, blazed fierce against his own, A sharp nail traced up his inner arm, reaching skin, "I knew you were there, was curious about you, and now that I have seen you, what should I do with you?

"Loosen my bonds and then die" Ešl answered, his gaze anguished and the light intense with grief, "Grant me a safe passage outside, along with all the others you have currently in thrall.

"Impudent thing," Gothmog laughed, "I can have you as I like, and you can join our cavorts in the snow. Do you not think winter is too drear here? Your blood would add nicely to the landscape though I do not think," He paused suddenly, "No, he would not be pleased, and you are still so intriguing to him.

The balrog leaned close, "He thought you are Feanaro did you know.

Ešl bit his lips: I did not mean to deceive.

"Go back, little elf," The monster fire mocked, "Out of the snow and rain back indoors where it is safe and warm. It is late and long past your bedtime.

Ešl growled, struggled, but they carried him bodily to the entrance of the tower. The doors opened by themselves and the orcs shoved him inside, scaly cold fingers all too detectable on his arms and sides. Ešl fell to his knees, hard, the pain stunning him.

Falling sideways onto a bruised shoulder, he cried out even as a blast of winter wind hit him in the chest. The floor seemed as ice.

His hands were red and wet with the other's blood, he could taste the tang from the other's mouth.

The doors shut, but all the heat had already escaped.

Drawing his legs close against his body, Ešl shivered.

--

"I have seen him." Gothmog declared, whispered conspiratorially, triumph shining through and through.

Sauron sat startled in his seat, His fingers still sticky and half-dried with the grime of his work. He rubbed his thumbs together and stripped the soiled layer away from that part of his skin.

"Now I know," The balrog continued, watching the army array themselves, "I could have him." He added, an eye sliding to see that Sauron had paused all movement, his fana fading into something more insubstantial and more powerful, "No different from the others: no more, no less.

"You shall not." Sauron said, hissing slightly, like the steam that rose from the pits. He was not looking at the balrog. The orcs had been assembling, and he noted that they seemed better, taller and stronger than all the others before them. Eyes flitting over the columns, the increasingly Arda-bound souls had made his work easier as the light dimmed from those who came from over the sea. He was glad of it despite a vague unease that coiled within him at his own success for he had not thought it possible that traces of paradise could fade from one who had lived in it.

"Close blood at Cuivienen must have sundered before their march," Gothmog continued, ignoring Sauron's darkening face, "Elwe, Finwe, Igwe, they were all of one house once upon a time. When the world was young and Imin, Tata and Enel awoke as chieftains of their people long before the call and did not know their immortality. When the land was dark and absolutely ours, Minyar, Tatyar, Nelyar, the Sindar were part of the Nelyar. Teleri, they called themselves before Bereliand ceased to became a camp, their march forever halted." He paused. "The Teleri who reached Valinore became the Falmari, and of the Nelyar, most became the Noldor.

Sauron was sullen.

"Our times are precious. Your point?

Gothmog tipped forward, his hands upon the other's knee. Sauron did not flinch, but neither did he turn to the balrog when his form began solidifying beneath the touch.

"He is almost a replica of the infamous Feanaro is he not? Less blessed of course. Is he kin to Elu, silver-haired even as Miriel the mother of Feanor was?" When it went unanswered, Gothmog tightened his hold, his fingers deep enough to bruise flesh. "And what are you making, a Falmar?

Wresting his gaze from the long cavern beneath them, he said evenly: "I am making nothing.

"Nothing indeed, when the Blessed Lights flashed across my skin like a blade, in double strength with understanding of Endore's darkness, it was nothing" Gothmog traced a finger along an inner thigh, knowing that he could be thrown off at any moment, or even felled. "Yet I must congratulate you." The twitch of muscle under his palm was satisfying. "The pain must have been great for him, when divergent paths for their souls were forced to converge. He had to die because Feanaro died, and Feanaro had to live because he lives. Is it not beautiful, the broken music, the broken symmetry? The broken balance of the Music, which they all feel even if they could not hear, sings inside me. The Noldor when they came and met themselves, that was a moment, but never had one been made into another, when the equilibrium is disrupted when the basic essence transmutes in form. Did you ever suspect, that it would not have happened, the sheer semblance of life for life, form for form, between Valinor and Endore if the Valar had not bore them away? They have given us a great aid

Prying the fingers off, Sauron stood, towering over the fana of the balrog, who had been fearless. Sauron noticed that in front of him stood Feanor even as Melkor described him when Morgoth first fled from Aman before the First Children's wrath.

"Hide him." Then after a moment, "I could help you." Gothmog waited, and he was naked as he reached up and touched an iron collar of Sauron in formless power.

Then the air thrummed with his voice: "I would have him as he wishes, I would have him as I would being who I am, and being Maia, be unparalleled in my desire.

The chamber was dark, eerily lit by the cavern below. A lone elf stood facing a great empty chair full of shimmering air, shaking his fists, his skin gleaming and his shadow fierce.

"You would have him as you would have a jewel within a box, as you would to mimic even as you curry to our lord's moods," The balrog glowed and burned a bright orange, fana unsustainable, "My. Father's. Moods.

Sauron laughed then, the clatter mixing with the rude sounds of the orc drills below.

"Is this what it is about, jealousy!" He sank into fana again, so he could see Gothmog's face proper, to taste the scent upon his skin.

"I am my father's son even as Eonwe was Manwe's yet you would vie for his favor with meÉ" Gothmog let out a great roar, and so great was the rage in him even the ancient ground shook with the sound. "How?

"I chose, while you could not.

Stunned, he broke through the fairest form and lunged toward Gorthaur, trapping him within smoke and shadows. Eyes gained clarity within the embrace of shadows and flame, tearing into the beast of fire. He took a sharp breath, and the silence pushing. He had nearly forgotten, Sauron also saw the Lights of Aman, and being made before Arda, the light did not fade. Close against him, the sorcerer's body was warm even within the flames.

"Have you ever met a son in Arda who would go against his father's wishes?" Sauron asked calmly, immovable, only a small voice at first, then his anger flared, harsh and burning, _I_ had everything to lose while _you_ had nothing. Son of Melkor and Ulbandi, you were filled with darkness the hour of your birth, disorder was your unparalleled mettle. Ulbandi fled though she was Queen of the Night, for she could not comprehend Melkor at the end, but you remained, forsook your mother and sought under your father's wing, and gained form from stealth- a lone discord in the First Music before Eru saw his thoughts fail. There is no strength in your loyalty, only ignorance.

Taken aback, Gothmog shrank back even as his lips curled. He pointed a finger at the laboring orcs below, new heights among them, brightly clothed and fair and clean limbed for the most part. Their astonished eyes were curious as they stared at the review of the awkwardly shaped horde with the incongruously star kissed steel and the palpable strength bred out of ugliness.

"I could have something now, the elf you keep in the lust of your fana. Do you somehow foretell with your own the comportment of the Second Children, Sauron? Shall we look to you for the fate of them?

Sauron walked away, the scent of smoke upon his scorched clothing. He had no dealings with such, short-lived mortals and easily hurt, half beasts that were no greater than beasts, only a little better than mockeries, for they were tenacious of life, as if Eru realized the soiling of His firstborn and angrily birthed another.

"So you do not deny it, it is his flesh you crave even as the basest mortal creature would crave another: injure, kill, betray for it." Gothmog said, and the other's ponderous steps that was silent.

Yes, Sauron fancied he could, and would-the flesh is a terrible thing to deny and he would do all things to deny himself nothing. Why else is he here, enthralled within Melkor's uncreated world, but to consummate all his desires?

The dun-colored walls marked with dried and ancient blood called a remembered knowledge before Sauron eyes- of a time in an eddy. Having forgotten much since Melkor had him, he had never liked the reminder. Turning around, the anguish of such things gripping his being, the words were soft and threatening with deep pain when he spoke.

"Know this at least," He said evenly, the darkness a shroud around his eyes, "Even if all else is gone from you in the hour of death, High Captain of Angband, Melkor needs me.

"And you need that elf, an impersonation of your desires. Why must you have them?

He wrested with the question, rather, the answer to it, for it seemed absurdly simple though he could not articulate it.

"Do nothing." He said finally. Two words, yet all the world's threat was behind them.

"Fear not," Gothmog said, as facetious as a balrog could, behind Sauron's retreating back, "Alas, I have no time other than to do my father's bidding. Him and his damnable crown.

--


	8. 8

He was very still standing there in the middle of the vestibule, facing the fountain. The large and thickly cushioned benches bore no trace of his misery though they were tumbled in disarray, a wayward blanket collapsed against a pillow. The ease of the scene angered him. He tried to set the fabric alight with his gaze to no avail.

"Who is he?" Ešl asked, as Annatar enfolded the trembling form within his arms.

"How long have you waited?" He asked softly, for the elf was very cold. And through the rent clothing, ugly purple bruises grew above reddened skin.

"It does not matter. What is Feanaro?

Sauron stiffened.

"Feanor." He answered when it was not an answer at all. Truthful enough, however. Then again: "No one knows.

"You do," The elf said, and turned around within Annatar's arms and he realized he could not see Feanor in Ešl's features anymore, "But you would not tell me.

Growling slightly at the narrowed eyes and the daringly accusatory turn of the mouth, Annatar opened his mouth then decided otherwise. The anger toward Gothmog lingered, and so did a thought from that. Smirking now, his arms tightened around Ešl until the elf started to squirm within the embrace, features slightly contorted in pain and surprise. Sauron walked forward and trapped Ešl between him and the wall, his knee between the other's legs.

"I would not." He was closer and caught Ešl's mouth and tongue.

A whimper escaped as the fear dissipated from the elf's body into the comfort of subtle and swift movements of light hands and delicate lips. He curved forward as hands ran down his sides and parted his legs while the kiss pulled away lingeringly.

Annatar treated him as he would a statue, a work of art: the careful touches down the curves of his legs, up the rise of his chest and curling around his face- for a little while, when he saw his own discolored skin, Ešl was afraid that he would be found wanting. But statues, he knew, for he worked with them now would never feel as he did; statues do not arch up when touched nor groan and plead when they were not. Twisting gracefully out of stone or wood, the dearest face could not speak; the most delicate fingertips were always cold after the flush of their birth.

Warm fingers teased his ripped clothing open. The first brush of supple lips against his cheek, a warm breath against his neck, the wet heat of a tongue against his neck, and he found that he could not stand. Hands and fingers inserted themselves easily beneath the loose folds, smoothing over his chest. Ešl closed his eyes and felt his body taut with the rapid starts and stops of passion, the only passion he had ever known, full of caresses and soft kisses, when even the hard edges of teeth were but a gentle pressure upon his skin. The wall behind his behind his back disappeared.

There was a rush of wind, and he felt himself lowered onto the bed. Ešl was like food, being slowly appraised, tasted, and devoured as Annatar eased his shirt off, eyes burning. A heat followed the hands that ran down from his neck to navel, gathered at the center of his body and expanded outwards. Annatar straddled Ešl, and the fire grew in concentric circles.

Buttons, laces, and clasps lay tangled with fallen tunic and breeches. The final drape of clothing falling across the bed hailed a delightful franticness in Ešl's movements, writhing under Annatar's own naked skin that could ignore clenching fingers that had grown stronger through the years. His own skin was too tender, Annatar told him once with a wistful look in his face, ignoring the ragged breathing as he traced fluttery lines down Ešl's body, that even Arafinwe's son while in Valinor could not even compare. Ešl did not know who Arafinwe's son was, but he knew that he bruised when he asked for firmer kiss upon his flesh from a reluctant Annatar; he did not even care, in those moments, that he asked, because the touch comforted him.

Dancing fingertip played, teased and moved on, only the barest roughness on the palms belying the fact breezes did not his flush skin and render him like wax, his body helpless beneath the shifting weight. It pressed upon him, it's firmness a pleasure, a reassurance of muscle and bone molding against his own in all the familiar places.

Annatar gave him silver one day, and out of a certain perverse, desperate curiosity, Ešl made a mirror of it and saw his face for a moment, startled and oddly old, though not fully so yet. Taken away, Ešl did not remember what he saw, and could not trust that that face that haunted him was his. Mounted above the bed he did not sleep in, now he saw their tangled bodies shining sleekly upon the metal in the darkest nights, and time slowed as he followed the teasing passage of a hand upon their reflection, trailing his hands from under his arm to the slope of a hip while his neck tilted exposed to a suckling mouth.

Tangling sinuously within the embrace, there was a savage sort of tranquility in a mouth pressed upon the inside of an arm or high on the inside of a thigh. Sometimes, he could see the light through the windows, refracting and spreading around the room sending the colors of their skins to an insubstantial pastel, as if painted and powdered upon matter other than flesh. The faintest breath upon the center of his body sent a tingling, almost ticklish feeling chasing through his palms. The slightest touch of a fingertip, he cried out words, or sounds he never remembered afterwards.

Annatar paused briefly midway down Ešl's rapidly rising and falling chest, smiled, and then his hands were sweeping down where they could as he licked across the muscled plane, curving lines, hearing the hammer of the elf's heart against his ear, and the mess of contrary words sailing forth wild in the room. Breathless himself, the maia moved down to the flawless chest. The moans from the elf began to tumble over each other amongst the raw, mindless response of his body.

A curious longing, wrought more fantastical then all the designs upon the headboard, could overwhelm Annatar's senses and catch him as the unnatural glimmer in Ešl's eyes faded beneath hooded lids. He knew scent of Ešl's skin- a compound of the traces of mint and smoke- could intoxicate; reduce him to no more wit than that of his body if he had been other than he was, and the body more that is. The elf was hot beneath him, his skin flushed and body arching desperately against the heat of his body's desire.

Annatar's splayed fingers fell across his chest and drifted down, and so hotly Ešl burned they felt cold against the skin. A thumb brushed against a curious place, and lingered there for a moment before the indulgent hand was moving between their bodies, wrenching waves of pleasure to crash against his body. Slowly, deliberately, Annatar slid with tender and terrible control along the length of the fair form and committed to memory the short, soft rounded bursts of sound as Ešl writhed helpless beneath the wet heat of his mouth pressed against the rimmed muscles of the abdomen.

The confusion drove him to a maddened state. When Ešl opened his eyes, he saw himself beneath the other, their limbs tangled in the sheets upon the reflection on the mirror surface. He shut his eyes so tightly the stars he saw matched those he felt, a million pinpoints that enticed and teased upon his skin. Then he was sprawled on top of Annatar, eaten by an open mouthed kiss as the hands roving upon his back and buttocks until the rested somewhat precariously on the small of his back, a finger dipping slightly into the gentle furrow at the end of the spine. Shocking gray looked into his own as Ešl felt himself caressed by a wandering hand that made soft its rhythm and calmed the seas continuously ebbing inside him as a liquid fire. His muscles tightened and grew taut with crises denied twice until he cried out to no avail. The ache subsided gradually, but he did not know how.

Tired, he curled against Annatar, with the sight of golden strands in his eyes before he was soon borne afloat by another open path in the twilight. Ešl imagined himself very old suddenly, and all was an end. The wind had passed him by and there was rest only a little further along the way.

"My dearest elf," Annatar whispered, and the words were very old indeed. He sprinkled kisses upon the tousled dark hair.

"Teach me the language." Ešl said, the sound not quite muffled in the embrace, growing calm, "PleaseÉ"

The maia's movements paused.

"Why?

"So I may answer next time.

And what would you answer, knowing what he is? Annaar thought, what you are to them? What I have made you to be? He thought of Gothmog and felt uneasy, almost guilty despite knowing that he was not.

"So I may askÉ" What am I, Ešl heard himself say, but the words were drowned in the dreams that took him.

--


	9. 9

The march of the armies resumed under Gothmog, and Sauron, too, prepared to leave. He was troubled that he could not speak to Melkor of the things that lay whispering in his secret heart. Melkor was essence, essence sitting on the throne, essence shrouded in the glare of his dark crown- he was an extreme of choice, and Sauron could choose as long as he was free.

Melkor could not see a thing in any other way the he could see. Sauron's guts twisted at the thought.

"Milord Vala," He said, seething with the unsaid.

Melkor met the dark eyes steadily with his own where even the light dwindled into nothingness.

"Milord Maia," Answered he, and nodded, "My blessings are upon you for this venture outside our keep. Prison they named Angband: for us, this is the reol's efuge of our desires. What we wish we shall have with Angband as our medium.

Sauron looked up, gaze confused, and the mouth that parted was from a form he took while he labored in forges of the bright Aule. His power lay in his voice and his eyes, and infinite reasons colored his lies, but Melkor knew Thauron well before Thauron knew himself.

"What do you wish to say?

"Many things," Sauron replied, and was hesitant. He forced the door of his thoughts to swing shut.

"Perhaps of Gothmog.

"Nay.

"Of this campaign.

"Nay.

"Of our purpose here then.

Thrice Sauron denied Melkor's advances and thrice felt himself twist beneath the weight of the effort. He could not breath when curiosity weighed so heavily upon him. Deeply, fervently, he wished to hear what Melkor named Morgoth would say of Gothmog, of Angband, of an attack on Fingolfin's camp near Mithrim. Nevertheless, he would not bear admission because he knew the answer would not be right and yet be powerless to think it so.

"Name a thing of many things." Melkor said, the dark sheen on his vambrace eerie and unsettling; polished like a mirror, with his head bowed, Sauron could see his own visage and was angry- he appeared too like Annatar then. "If you would not speak, then the matter is rest and was no matter at all but part of a false art born from a false heart.

Bended knee unfolding, Sauron stood up slowly. The genuflection broke open.

"False?" He echoed, voice growing louder, "To whom am I false?

"Do you not have a master other than yourself," Asked Melkor, the shadows of his cape rustling like the sound of faint wails, "Do you not address me as your lord and yet presumes to keep things you wish to say hidden from my ears? The heart changing course can only be said as false and none else. And to say that you wish to say many things and would not any, does that not reek of a manipulative art. What do you wish me to do?

"If I said, I do not have a master other than myself. If I said, I address you as lord only because you were made first. If I said, I am to do with my speech and my affairs as I please, and art comes naturally, what then?" The glimmer of a Silmaril was caught in a corner of Sauron's eyes.

Drumming his fingers on the rest of the throne, whirling with the arcane designs of his making, Melkor remembered the day upon the sheer windy cliff.

"What else other than that we are allies of the first, for we gave birth to the word. We are allies, Sauron, because we needed it. It is need that binds us, neither empty desire nor consuming lust." The apprentice of the House of Aule had lingered upon its threshold and would not pass, and so fey and so fine were his words and beauty Melkor craved it for his own. So he had cajoled and persuaded, drawing upon all the power he had been gifted he tore the ainu away from the warm bower of his first youth with a vision, bright flash of infinite fulfillment of the infinite temptations.

"Do you think I lie to you?" Sauron asked, his face impossibly young. Succumbed, and yet victorious in his own right; there was helplessness and power entangled. A whisper pounded against his ears, that he had imprisoned himself if this was a prison as he had came to see it.

"I think I trust you," Melkor mused, "Indeed, I do," knowing he must. From the throne upon the dais, he leaned forward and reached out his hand, "Child, minion, and equal.

Sauron did not believe him, and did not take the hand. In a sudden movement, Melkor leaned further forward, grasped Sauron's impassive hand, and held it almost tenderly.

"The question remains, for I see clearer now, it is not what you want to say, but what you wish me to do," Said Melkor.

There was something perverse of evil, of nothingness speaking the truth, of nothingness being so powerful. Sauron knew all those things nevertheless he could not deny the intoxication of being made commander of them.

"Be not yourself to me, for you are traitor that way." Sauron answered, the black flesh burning as Melkor slipped the golden glove off.

"Better phrased: to let you be." Melkor said. Sauron was silent. Secrets leaked out of him from the permanent wounds rendered by the sharp edges of light sparkling upon the crown, "I will, Sauron, I will, Annatar." Melkor said, lying the other hand on top of such bright and rallying locks.

Beneath the fringe of his lashes, Sauron stared at the gambeson, an amorphous floating relief upon it. When the heavy, slender, hand left and seemed to leave its imprint, he stepped up the stages toward the throne and looked up into Melkor's eyes.

"As we are allies, so my wish stands." Unbowed before the abyss, he made his choice with their hands clasped against the center of Morgoth's chest. The winds changed in his world but he no longer felt its caresses.

Melkor's iron fingers untangled themselves from his. Released, he fled.

Sauron did not look back.

--

After Black Hand left, Melkor saw the familiar shadow passing and beckoned to it.

Thuringwethil stood before Melkor, her face haughty and her back straight.

"You push him too far milord," She said, "He may leave us." Her mouth was very dry. Sauron had swept past her, nodded, a hair of his golden head stark on her dark dark cloak for just a moment.

"Only for a little while perhaps, but he would not break, there's no such thing as too far for him," said Melkor, toying with the image of Sauron's face in his mind. He stood from his throne and puts his hand over his crown, only briefly, dark and slender fingers threading with the lines of light from the Silmarils. The room was full of shadows for a while.

"The siege continues." Thuringwethil said, wetting her dry lips with her tongue.

"And I shall not break it, not for a while." Melkor replied. The Silmarils no longer cried, they whimper and sob occasionally but their luster was not dulled.

"Thangorodrim ring with his cries, I had expected that someone would come for him." She followed him up a twisting stairway ending in a platform only a little above the battlements. Twilight and gloomy air hid them from dimming eyes of the Noldor.

"His children are forsaken by the Valar. Do you think it not fitting that Eru's betrayed by those at Valinor as well?" Melkor asked, a faint feeling of satisfaction creeping up bones.

"Yes, you are very accomplished milord." She murmured. "And what of the other him?" She tilted her head toward the tall tower of the Quarter. "Would he stay?

"For a while. Everything has its time." Melkor answered without looking, instead, surveying the Noldorin encampment with a certain pride. "Haste should not be my weakness as it had been for others." Thuringwethil stood straighter, and gathered her cloak close against the blustery winds. Her master looked sidelong and marked her expression, wane beneath the sheet paleness. "Are you well fed today," continued he, "Look how they build their fires large outside their tents and a smaller one inside. Look how nimble they consider their feet to be, walking across bough and snow as if they thought I have seen neither before and they should ambush me. Better that they clad themselves with their armors of steel than dreaming that lightness of eyes should surprise me." He laughed suddenly, glancing toward the mountains at the gates, and for a moment, the stones of Angband shook and rang with the hideous sound.

"Not all things are a ruse, milord." Not all things is like you. Nothing can utterly be. Thuringwethil's face was ice, and her eyes colder. She followed him as he started on the walkway into the bowels of the earth, thinking that perhaps he enjoyed her discomfort.

"The cycle repeats itself yet I know I shall never tire of it.

"The new one has scarcely begun.

The sky was an indecent gray and the winds had grown louder and more violent, rending and cracking the air with a thousand whips.

"Strange how I feel so young and shall always for all eternity. Have you fed?" He laid a hand on her shoulder, then another, a firmer one. He put his mouth by her ear. A shifty yellow-eyed orc gaze met her eyes as she turned away from the cold breath against her face. "Answer my question, have you fed?" Lifting her hair out of the way, Melkor brushed his smooth white teeth over the soft skin of her neck before playfully nipping it. Thuringwethil sighed.

"You know I have not, milord.

Melkor's monster lips remained on her neck, cold and clammy like the clinging grasses of a swamp.

"A messenger cannot afford to be ravenous in her journeys." The cold imprint of his mouth remained as Melkor stood back and demanded her to follow.

The shadow firelight of the tunnel blurred earth and blood and refuse into murk. A foul stench rose from the ground and the walls shook in small, almost imperceptible movements. So dark, eyes were incandescent pearls within and could only widen and narrow, or close. Thuringwethil could feel the passage thinning until her fingernails scratched at the uneven surface of the walls. The ceilings pressed down, and with every step the vibrations becomes more detectable. She stopped.

"I will not.

"You shall.

The light of the Silmarils stunned her. Turning swiftly, she began to walk in the opposite direction. Golden hair spread around an elven face full of fair grace, the eyes starlit in sleep, starlit in awakening- they stared, into hers before her sorrow, into the hazy shroud of her memories. She turned and started running- the imagery hovering before her. Melkor loomed into view, and he was laughing.

"I wondered when." He said, and the Silmarils were very bright indeed.

The image became stronger, firmer in flesh and substance. He stood before her and smiled, the curl of the corners of his mouth as fine as she remembered those nights beside Cuivennen. Thuringwethil reached out a hand to touch him before snatching it back quickly. Oh, but he was still here, standing before her, a living and breathing memory.

"Eat Orcspit!" She cried to the one that stood beside the apparition. Lunging forward and only a hair's breadth away she found herself caught again. Not by his hands, never by his hands, but by the two dark eyes spirits holding her with their vice-like grip. And she knew the grip well too, and that SHE could have been faster and stronger, closer to tearing that smug face off that damnation. She felt herself collapsing and shrinking in the darkness as Melkor's hands covered the Silmarils.

Small, anguishing, lonely voices whispered fiercely, ruefully in her mind for the golden memory had disappeared as she had wanted it to. Nay, she just did not wish to see him hereÉsee herÉainu in a perverse form. The path widened before her tired feet. So weary, so weary, yet the firelight danced upon the naked dirty sprawled flesh beyond the iron bars. A strange moribund thing slid into her stomach and she flinched at the gnawing sensation that simply would not cease.

"Feed," Melkor told her, arms crossed, leaning against a pillar as the dark shadows slinked past him, "Before you leave. I will not have my messages from my lieutenant stalled because you need to satisfy your hunger along the way or captured because the messenger is too weak to evade scrambling Quendi.

The elves inside the cell looked out at her with blind fearful eyes, their limbs set at awkward angles. One opened his mouth and a strangled sound melted into the air.

"Your lieutenant could use the time from the delay to think of what he is doing and whether he should continue it," She said without tearing her eyes off from the sight, "He could repent as I could not.

"You say these things when you are hungry. It's an evil habit." Melkor said. The iron doors slid open with a loud clang, and the elves groaned. Not yet emaciated, their flesh was already wasting. Loose skin hung upon vanishing muscles and brief spots of cleanliness around the wrists and ankles showed pale pink skin.

"I find my mind is clear when I suffer so unnaturally. It reminds me that I once did not suffer." Thuringwethil answered, feeling her hunger aggravating. She stepped over the threshold of the prison and her shadow filled it. When she found her mouth close to the skin of a broken wrist she asked, "Why do you insist milord, every damned time

"As much as you wish to leave you cannot except into the Void...and that is still horror for you," Melkor's voice drifted back as she sank her fangs into the delicate pulsating veins, "As long as you are here and mine, you shall live, and live better if I command it." The hand twitched and tried to clench, and then fell still. Melkor cooed. "You still live, though you wished it not so. In the end, you would still find your prey and hunt him down. Is this not better? When he is broken and welcoming the release of his fea from his hroa?

The flesh beneath her lips hissed gently, the sound of salt being poured upon a deep wound. Thuringwethil looked up, eyes bright and guilt. Shadows draped the limp forms even as she left.

"Hurry," Melkor said, "He is waiting.

--

The clouds sallied forth before the armies did: bright helms and star-kissed steel wielded by immortal fear and Noldor will. Before the breaking of the day, Finwe's son led a charge against the left, immerging out of the trees from behind the camp. Dark clouds rolled, climbing atop the other until the sky was black. The fire of the balrogs shone fierce as Sauron lifted his Black Hand to the heavens and agitated the wind and the rain to burst wild from the grasp of Manwe. Upon the ground, sharp spires of grass impeded the elves' movements as the orcs readied themselves. The day was night, and eyes flashed upon faces lit excited by fire.

It happens in sudden, sporadic violent clashes. Upon his high seat upon the hill, Sauron could see the armies moving forwards and backwards, neither gaining ground. He was counting. The sons of Feanor were conspicuously missing. He knew them to have been ordered to come. Whether they would heed the words of Nolofinwe, newly Fingolfin, would be doubtful if he was not so sure of their mutual hatred of him, and of the abominations that now faced their unblemished kin.

The ragged files seemed strange against the ordered ranks of the elves. Black armor stood against the polished silver. They fight at night, and Tilion's obscured, yet dawn was thickening blood.

A little in the distance, Gothmog and the First Guard formed a picket line and moved in a diagonally, distracting and thinning the main brunt of the Noldor force. Balrogs took longer to fight than death-wished orcs after all. The smell reached Sauron as he inhaled deeply, conscious of every movement of air within and without him. Acrid flesh and blood mingled with the scent of smoke as new waves surged from beyond the bluffs. Hordes of monsters upon the fields, Sauron continued to search for the Feanorioni. They weren't there, though their banners were. Sauron looked slightly to note that the cloth was newly mended, and upon its position atop a tree, away from the carnage below. The seven pointed stars were cold and accusing upon the horizon, the banner-bearer having been planted in the highest point an elf could find.

They could never disguise the armor of their make from his eyes, and they would never wear another while they lived. Feanorions were different, and they were gone. Everyone of Fingolfin's effort was desperate. There were no such things as bluffs to him, and so, his enemies were always hoodwinked into believing something perhaps they should not. Desperate, yet not reckless, every grimace and every tear measured, Nolofinwe and his followers fought with all their lives behind them. He had never seen such a momentous elf.

Sauron was puzzled now. Did he fought so desperately because the Sons of Feanor abandoned himÉdid accidents immobilized them all..or perhaps, a new kinslayingÉImperceptibly, the battle drew on, and seemed as it would be longer still.

Sauron turned to Thuringwethil, laid a missive in her hands and said in curious afterthought. "Look to him," He paused, "For me." She glanced at him warily and nodded.

Something stirred in his blood as the dark shape sailed away, dark wings into dark sky. To think the beyond was still unmitigated darkness almost made his thoughts falter, and the melee pause as a shaft of sunlight broke onto the ground. For one, sudden, brilliant moment, the entire orcish mass cowered and scattered the ranks.

But the Silmarils were there, and that should be enough.

Hard pressed in the fervor of the war, Sauron bade the coming of a gray mist. The sky closed again, and he saw that it was good. The elves were driven back, almost enervated while the orcs recovered their strength. Constancy made the bloodshed shed dull. He saw hardened veterans aging before his eyes, having lost the excitement of what they wished for most, the liberation from Eru's ultimate decree as a head rolled or a neck spouted blood. Orcs die of old age.

None could come close to him, sequestered and invisible, nary a distortion in the air where he stood. A gentle breeze flew carelessly across the bloodied sward and each stir and keep of the commotion reminded him of the sky and consequently, Eol. He too, hidden.

And of all the years Sauron led while Melkor slumbered, imprisoned in the hold of the Valar, he had never been so strangely distracted in a waging battle. There was a danger hidden somewhere, close to him, as he always would know, as when fairest of the Maia strode into Aule's halls and smiled

A long cry echoed in the distance, faintly familiar. But Fingolfin had regrouped, and then they were gone, retreated with a terrible swiftness over the river. Sauron knew why the Feanoriaons were missing.

He let out a roar of outrage. It was over far too quickly yet Melkor had insisted he came.

--

Naril looked down at Turufin's hands, still gently twined in Telereth's dark hair. He stared at it a long time, and then at Turufin's face, and then back at Telereth's, pale and still.

"Another." Turufin had expected a scolding, perhaps; a reprimand at the least- but he heard neither in Naril's voice. "It will not help, you know. She cannot come back." There were grief in the words, and a new bitterness.

"I know.

"Yes, you would, as we all would. We are not blind after all." Naril glanced away. "We should put her on the pyre with the rest." He said, looking warily around.

"We were suppose to be together until the end of Arda. She did not even know how to wield a blade. I did not. We were artisans." He bit the inside of his cheek until it bled but his fingers let go. Then, "Our hroa should have lasted longer. I should have convinced her to stay.

"Most of us are." Naril said. "And we should. Come, let us not delay. The camp is only a little further on and night if falling.

Rumors travel discreetly in army camps, but even Turufin in his grief could name those who had disappeared into the darkness without a trace, with neither honor nor strength trailing words of their death for the ones left behind. Instead, whispers and frightened voices followed.

The Noldor knew strangeness and horror in Feanor's grief, but they followed him. They loved him so much that when he put a sword to his brother's neck, they listened, when he slew his kin, they followed, and when he challenged the rule of the dark land, they thought him righteous beyond all reproof.

By fire and smoke and ice they were gathered together beneath the same dark sky.

Our perhaps it was just mutual guilt, haunting as the coiling veins in the dark forests that housed bright poison mushrooms instead of bright fruits, thorns instead of supple smooth stems. And Feanor was the guiltiest of them all.

So Turufin thought, for he had desired a child with Telereth and now pulse had stopped and body cooled while Nolofinwe Finwion sat in his camp deliberating with his captains. Nolofinwe who loved Feanor enough that he left his wife behind.

He looked at Naril, and remembered Nololinde, the loremaster of the library in the palace in Tirion upon Tuna. Nololinde was Naril's brother, and husband to Naril's sister, the one who drew the passage to the Hither Shores for Feanor. Nololinde had been the first to disappear.

The ache inside him would not stop, he felt it twisting him when he no longer had strength in his heart. Courage for the unknown could not stand up against the tide that whispered so many futilities in his heart.

There would be no realms. Naril watched silently as Turufin grabbed handfuls of the leaves on the ground and wept bitterly. Burrs misted on their clothes, and a ghost of a wind took the scent of the campfires to their noses.

There would be no kingdoms. There would be no children when they march, when they only forge weapons and shields.

Secured, they said. Safety, they chanted. Our own, they claimed. Worse, they are us.

Telereth was dead. Turufin grieved to no avail. What would he give to escape the tears and the mournful fates. Far too many, far too manyÉFor a brief moment, Naril glanced something strange in his mind, an end, but he had not yet loved, and hope nestled warmly in his thoughts.

They should move. Helluin was red, and it glimmered like a blood drop visible by the first torchlight. So much grief, Naril found Turufin and Telereth's figure slipping away from him as the night descended. He glanced toward the road, straining his hearing.

The scouts should be out soon.

Something with a figure in a dark cloak approached.

The Lady of the Dark Sorrow wondered upon the deserted path in the woods under the gibbous moon. The heavy fall of her sleeves concealed a bloodied dagger held against her bosom. A caul shadowed her face into delicate angles.

"The name is Elanna," She said softly to Naril, "I was to look for you for milord.

There was one among them whose hair was gold, and his bearing proud. She saw him from afar and remembered the soft skin against hers beside the twilit waters.

From a distance, she saw him. As fair as his hair was, and as his face was noble, she found within herself wondering whether he had finally came back, or whether it was the other one who she never saw past blood dimmed vision.

Naril narrowed his eyes.

"I've never seen you.

"I've never seen you." She countered, and within her eyes, Naril found something that he should've known and loved.

Turufin took Telereth and followed Naril and Elanna down the well traveled road toward their encampment. The somber journey did not lack for speed and it was not long before she saw.

She stopped on the gray road paved with mud and clay.

Finrod was tall among his brethren, and he was fitting with the scouts. His face shone clear under the moonlight.

Her child was not here. Turning to look at her companions, Thringwethil thought of the blood of Telereth in her veins. The light in Turufin's eyes were newly quenched. Something welled within her then. It was almost alien, but she remembered the bittersweet taste of it.

"There is a message for you from milord." Elanna told Turufin. Naril walked ahead, dazed, while the other elf stayed just for a little while. And when Naril looked back, neither were there. He shook his head when Finrod intercepted him.

Telereth and Turufin, and the child in her womb, Thuringwethil carried them in her veins as she sped toward Angband.

--


	10. 10

Morgoth sat on his throne, watching and waiting for all the right things to fall into place. The Silmarils pulsed steadily on, the rhythm of Arda hypnotizing the million orcs, men, maiar and elves yet to play a part.

Nettles bound the outside of the Quarter's doors. Sauron was away, and let no one enter lest they found liberty only in agony.

Ešl was deep in his drugged sleep when the door to the quarters opened.

Thuringwethil stepped up the steps and the nettles falling flared and snowed around her at the slightest touch, the doors opening with a sigh. With the authority given to her, Thuringwethil let herself drift into the abyss of order.

Thuringwethil said she would look to him, and she would. It was very beautiful here. Here colors and lines found expression without intruding her thoughts. For once, she saw more than shadow. Here her eyes needed to die and she became blind for she's Morgoth's Creature. A single sound, the slight rustling of silk sheet with each inhale and exhale of air led her to follow. The walls stood white and proud, its arrases the colors of sunlight.

Beneath the rosy damask, ensconced within the alcove lay Eol, Sauron's own Silmaril, and all Annatar's wonder. Being blind, she drifted her hand over his features and knew him fair and elven- arms crossed in front of chest, his eyes were shut and his breathing even. A soft scent in the room found dreamless sleep for him.

This was no warrior, she thought, fingertips glancing off cheekbones and the subtle curves of young lips. There was no blemish of blood. She trailed her hand up one bare arm from elbow to the strong, delicate fingers. This was a child yet, his hand callused and scarred from innocent pleasures of smithery.

She had not seen a child for a very long time. Those without cities learnt to fight from birth. Those within cities, their doors were closed. Those who came knew they came to war and met her as proven warriors.

"Eol," She whispered, wondering if his hair was dark or fair, whether his speech Sindar or Eldar. She wished she could see, and Eol was such a similar sound to Ele- the word he had gasped beside Cuivennen when awareness slipped through the first elves' consciousness.

She had been watching and waiting for him, and when he had woken beside another, she had come and kissed him and had led him away from her.

But Sauron did not love Eol even as Thuringwethil could no longer love. The memory ebbs distantly in blood and oathery, a suffering and betrayal of hope. Thuringwethil lay on her side beside Eol and caressed the smooth brow, brushing back a tendril of hair that had fallen across his eyes.

"Poor child," said she. Out of blank eyes sewn forcefully together by Melkor onto the fabric of her being, she looked down at Eol and heard the whisper of Angband. Eol was inconsiderately, disconcertingly beautiful with a beauty more than the line of his nose or the curve of his eyelashes.

And she lowered her lips to his and kissed lingering because he seemed at peace, and she desired peace.

Far away Sauron knew Melkor stirred. The reinforcement arrived, and he must fight still longer.

Eol's eyes fluttered open, and the world was gray before Thuringwethil. She leaned back and spoke, a strange garble of Quenya and Sindarin, but that was all right, for she spoke to herself.

"He remembered you in his thoughts and bid me to see you are well." Only half-awoken, Eol felt cold at the words. He propped himself on his elbows. With a deep reluctance, he looked at Thuringwethil, her elven form beautiful upon the bed. "But our lord also bid the same, and said that his lieutenant must be well.

"Who are you?" He asked, shying away, though his face remained stoic. The woman's eyes widened at the sound of his voice. He waited for an answer.

"Thuringwethil, Messenger of Angband." Thuringwethil said slowly. A deep shock made her arm shook ever so slightly on the soft sheets. Eol have the light of the Silmarils in his eyes when she knew he had them not when he first glanced outside the tower. The world was grey before her for he looked at her.

"What do you want?" Eol continued to ask, he looked at the night sky outside, "How long have I slept?

"Hours, days, months, or years, what does it matter, you are in Angband," She cried aloud, a horror had seized her, "Here time do not pass, it comes, it comes and changes you for His purpose." Her fingers gripped his chin and forced him to look at her, into eyes that echoed the dark mind. Eol strained to get away but found him suddenly pinned on the bed by a terrible force. Claws dug into his shoulders. Thuringwethil unfurled her great wings and blanketed him.

Snowy pale was her skin, and her features as delicate as his own, Eol struggled futilely against her grip. Insistent, stabbing pain began at his shoulder. Lines of blood trailed down his shoulder into the nonchalant pink sheets, barely staining them.

"Do you know what it means, Eol?" She asked in that strange lilting tone similar to Annatar's, "You will delay it all if you remained." She leaned closer, "His redemption could be within you, but I dare not to disobey.

She had scarcely laid the missive in Melkor's hands before he asked to see to Eol. Their forces must be not divided, he had told her, and the sooner evil reach its allotted time and fill in this world, the sooner it shall be purged of it.

"Isn't this," Melkor had said, fathomless eyes insistent, "What you want? For the world to be remade and for all the lovely things to rule the earth?

Thuringwethil had not known that Eol was not merely a curiosity, a desire to be trifled, taken and played. O, the wonder of him assaulted her when Eol opened his eyes. Sauron would be hold in thrall- his loyalty divided, for he too now, understood his power to change by cultivation instead of distortion.

"Whose redemption?" Eol asked, then fearfully, understanding falling around him like ashes, "What is his name?" She had wings, he had seen her before, vanishing into the clouds when he first looked outside.

"His name is Sauron, Gorthaur," Thuringwethil told him, her breath cool and burning against his face, "The one who you give the name Annatar." She laid her head on his chest and heard Eol's scream- anguish- for he had betrayed a thousand faces, a hundred loved ones, their names carefully laid down in ink and in songs in the halls of Menegroth.

Eol glanced and stared at himself in the mirror of his mind and could not bear the thought of his own face.

She carried him away to Melkor. She could not disobey even when she did not understand. This was the nature of faith, and Thuringwethil trusted a resonance of the Music that played faintly and sorrowfully within her.

In the Music of the Arda, tragedy brought beauty. As Thuringwethil carried an unconscious Eol down the corridor towards her lord, she thought him far too beautiful for the dim halls.

--

The Silmarils lights could not be owned because they contained the light of the two Trees. However, the Silmarils were encased upon Morgoth's crown and their lights seamlessly bound to his thoughts. Melkor after all, was of the Ainur who took part in the creation of the world.

Thuringwethil laid Eol down in front of Melkor's dark throne and was dismissed. The war in the front continued, and Sauron would need her. The claws on her wings was colored by Eol's blood, but she left, unable to see his face but hearing Melkor's voice clearly in her head.

Golden pillars rose into the grand arches of the black roof, balrogs stood guard at the entrance in subtle shapes bound by flesh and clothes. Melkor was holding court. Among them, men were seeing darkness's splendor for the first time- for these in attendance were children when they first came with their fathers who could not see in the darkness. Grown, they're held in thrall with the benevolence of fair Lord Melkor. Under the brilliance of Silmarils which seemed more like fire, the jewel-encrusted walls caught their eyes, and their thoughts were caught in his proposal. Melkor was generous with his offers. Armies to defeat your foes, riches from the earth for your kin, he said, all I require is that you honor my name in your houses when you return ennobled to your lands.

This shall be our farewell feast.

A circle gathered around the supine elven form in front of their hosts' chair as the cold Thuringwethil's brought in her wake left them. They knew of elves, they heard their screams of agony growing up, but they were never allowed to see one whole of limb, especially one in a swoon. Wine stopped flowing from the flagons as all paused to look. People stirred from their soft couches and came closer. Entwined flesh broke apart.

Melkor smiled at the looks of curiosity in their faces, such marks of intelligence and philosophy. He liked the Nightfearers. Being mortal, they found meaning in efficiency, and as crude as their means may be, there's a wildness in their souls and cruelty in their ends he found useful.

"Stand." Melkor said to the elf beneath his feet.

Eol groaned. His shoulders pained him, and the polished floors were cold. A large and burning hand hoisted him up by catching both of his wrists. Something behind him scalded, he twisted to get away, only to find his ankles locked on the ground. He glanced down. Claws were holding him.

"Eol," Melkor said, his voice sweet to the ears, full of gravity and assurance, "Look at me.

Bated breaths surrounded him, but the people did not dare to press closer. Eol looked up and met Melkor's eyes.

Melkor's eyes were ugly, but the Silmarils were beautiful and their lights engulfed the dark emptiness. Time slowed as Eol's gaze wondered upwards, from the glimmering ground up the glimmering person, full incandescent against the high, black throne.

"Ah." The sound came involuntarily, but Melkor had not known the extent of Sauron's truancy until then.

The face of Feanor, paler and more delicate than he remembered surrounded the twilight eyes of the elf in front of him. For a moment, he wondered if the Valar saw fit to have released the Spirit of Fire into the world again. O, but there was bitterness and fear, and the hint of darkness just enough.

Just enough so that Eol saw himself in Morgoth. Eol recoiled from the mirrors of the terrible eyes, and met searing heat behind him. Vaguely, he thought his skin must be blackened, or else raw from the scorching. Before him, ugliness of every soul, including his own, dwelled smug within Melkor.

Every muscle corded and knotted, cramped from the mind's imprisonment. He was a wide-eyed statue before the dais as his inside pinched and twisted in the snare.

The privilege of standing in the presence of Morgoth; there were those of the Quendi who would kill for it. The ever-bright Silmarils dwindled into tiny points of light in Eol's fading vision. Far-sighted from the ever hopeful gaze toward the west from above the clouds, Eol's saw the world melted into patches of color as his agony compounded.

Then there was no pain. In one moment of clarity, the air swam and thickened.

"What do you say to me?

"Thank you milord." They answered with voices trained to mortal perfection, modulated to convince and cajole. The circle around him broke apart. "What is your question?

Eol's vision settled, and saw the Second Children of Iluvatar for the first time. The man within arm's distance away from him was pale-skinned and black-eyed, the inherent rough handsomeness in the features chiseled to cruelty by the generous mouth wet with wine. And Eol could not speak because his throat was so raw, his lips wrinkled in thirst. He felt sapped and dry. But the world was set in lurid colors. The line of rubies around his questioner's brow was like small bright fruits, ripe and full, throwing an orange light against the dark hair.

The man came closer, and the gleam in his eyes trailed to Eol's face where focused and worshipped. Hark, these men had never seen an elf in such perfect agony, such perfect, isolated pride. The sweep of muscle across the throat and shoulders, the angles of the face and the set of lips and wild, bright eyes was a tragedy waiting to unfold. His mortality was yet strong enough in him that he wished to weep. He pushed one step closer and laid his hand on the warm flesh separated by a layer of cloth.

The shirt was thin. It tore easily beneath strong hands. Stripped bare, Ešl felt his nakedness keenly and despaired.

If he had not known lust before, he knew it now. He rather he did not, that the wide open eyes and the parted lips showing a sliver of tongue behind the teeth were inspired out of something other than the sight of his uncovered skin. But it would not be true. Not true that they did not wish to touch him, not true that the did not wish to alter him, not true that each and everyone wanted him for his own.

Morgoth had touched the hearts of these men. They desired the natural and unnatural for themselves. The tension in the room was not in waiting, but in warring.

Touches wondered up and down his legs, up his torso to his face, then down again. Innocent, light touches with no hint of threat in them. Yet the faces beyond the one in front of him said something else entirely.

"Ulda!" Someone shouted.

The touches seized. Ulda looked at Eol, guilty and guiltless. He stepped aside. People made space for him as he went to his couch, sat down, and reached for an offered goblet.

"Pity," One of them said, "Such pretty legs." He knelt down in front of Eol, and licked the path Ulda's fingers had just taken.

Revulsion took Eol and bile rose to his mouth. The man's face was flushed and the touches became more insistent. Eol looked at the man so near him and then glared at fair Morgoth- gray-eyed and dark-haired even as an elf.

"Let me go." He said. There was no reply.

"Now, we can't have you escape can we?" The man said again. He had knelt down, and his hands were on Eol's knees with a slight pressure. Out of the corner of his eye, Eol saw Ulda approach again before being ushered away, rather forcefully, Eol thought, to another goblet and conversation. The revelry had broken out again, though the circle around him had not diminished.

"Later, later." Melkor's voice carried well. Eol's wrists and ankles burned, and there were men pawing him without mercy. He must have finally gained enough strength to cry out because suddenly it all stopped, and there was an echo around the room. Only an echo.

"All elves come here to be buried alive," Melkor said. He was losing interest and thought the circle around the elf rather unseemly. Eol proved too much of a distraction. He must speak to Thuringwethil about it later on. "You are overdue.

Eol narrowed his eyes before a blow to stomach winded him. The burning locks around his limbs loosened even as he doubled up in pain and felt ropes bound his ankles tightly together. There was a rush of hot wind around him. The men fell away screaming though unharmed.

"Look at me." Melkor had descended from his throne. He stood a little taller than Eol, and very near. Melkor looked down at Eol and felt his horror and fascination grow. _Sauron, what have you done! _Eol was of Feanor. Nay, he was suppose to be a counterpart until Sauron thought differently. Melkor trembled slightly at that, chance also had wrought it. Then Eol lashed out. His fist met air, pain shot through his hand. He cradled it with his other and realized it that it had no feeling left in it. "Goodbye, Eol. I advice," Unruffled, Melkor lowered his voice, caressing a side of Eol's face as his mouth whispered by the elf's ear, "That you say goodbye to yourself, again. You're too dangerous like this." Eol shuddered as the hand drifted down his shoulder and arms.

"Then I would remain unchanged." He felt his hair stroked, and the planes of his abdomen mapped by a weightless hand.

"So they all say," Melkor laughed before bringing up Eol's numb hand and kissing it with warm lips, "At first." Once upon a time, he had said the same to Feanor in his forge in Valinor. He laughed to think he now said it to the shadow of him, for that must be all Eol remains being.

The Silmarils were very bright on a black crown. Hauled bodily out of the room afterwards, Eol could not remember what Melkor looked like as the flaming raiments of the balrogs surrounded and blinded him in a whirl of yellow and red capes.

--

An intricate collection of mazes carved the bowel of Angband into streets. Inside the rocky chambers alongside the roads lived creatures gathered and bred in darkness, fearsome and fearless, their origins existing in the darkest tales beside an elvish fire.

Through the heaviness that covered him, Eol heard the trickle of water and remembered a story he heard in the Halls of Thingol.

_Once upon a time before we have a king, there lived a child who loved waterfalls. He played along Aros who has many. The veils of water shimmered under the starlight but he was unhappy. Somewhere in the depth of his heart, he believed there was a perfect waterfall that existed for him. He painted such a vision for himself that he became disappointed with every new one he found. Despite stern warnings from his parents and elders, he went and searched for them beyond his people's borders. Then one day he met an old creature of the wood who promised to show him the most beautiful waterfall in Middle-Earth that sang the sweetest melody of waters. The child went with him and did not come back home by nightfall. His families searched. The chief sent out scouts. The child never came back._

He remembered the child in the story did not have a name. Eol's own name was a response to the stars. "Ele" they cried aloud, and thus, Eol. Like the-child-who-loved-waterfalls, it may me nothing in a story..or perhaps..everything, depending on the endÉhere, in the last dream the earth swallowed, he wished he had the gift of foresight. There was nothing worse in an unassuring reality.

Drifting in and out of broken thoughts, he sucked in a cold breath as he hit the hard floor and the shock of pain spread from the center of his back. Eol's eyes were wide open. For a moment, he thought he had merely fallen asleep upon the tower and had woken up to the night sky. The figment melted as a strong odor assaulted him. Though the glittering specks sparkled at him, above him were rock. Gray, rough, slates taunted him as he lay dirty and naked on the floor like some cast-off thing.

"Poor little one," A paw touched the top of his head as he struggled, "I am Devildo.

Devildo.

Ešl curled his tongue around the name and spat it at the creature, sending the syllables scattering across the room, slamming into the walls. Heads turned. Devildo's hairy face remained fixed upon his, the drops of saliva gleaming at the end of several hairs.

"You are famous here.

"Go away," Eol managed to croak, and would've sat up if those whiskers, as thin. as shiny, and as hard as steel wires, had not brushed his cheeks as Devildo's head lowered until the menace in its eyes were revealed. Then, to Eol's surprise, the cat grinned. Rather unpleasantly.

"The rumors are not far off then, though those fools perhaps hated more than it matters, and less respectful than they should for you to be _here_.

Making neither head nor tail of this, Eol concentrated on ignoring the fell vapors of its breath. He gasped in relief as the large head moved away. Devildo padded around him, chuckling and smiling all the while as he surveyed Eol from crown to toe.

"Very nice indeed," Devildo said, "Though I daresay a little worse for wear. Can't you get up?" He asked, looking down at Eol's legs. "I suppose not, with your ankles bound like this, though siting should be perfectly fine. I really hope they haven't broken your back. It would be a terrible waste, and we had such high hopes for you. Now then, up you go." The last was followed by a sharp nip at his waist. Eol grimaced and sat up and was actually glad he could. Devildo's words had sent a nervous tingling running up and down his spine. His first was to look at his hands. They were of a horrible, stifled pink, but it came from the ropes. It was far less than the raw and bleeding burns he had expected. He looked around. A wake of disgust surged through him. He lurched forward and heaved. Eol felt something wet and warm on his face. He touched it, and brought his hand in front of his eyes. His vision still swam, he could smell it before he saw it, blood from new scratches.

"Satisfied? No nasty slashes, gashes?" Devildo's voice was low and gruff with a note of mockery in the sudden leaps of pitch it would take. It was not a pleasant voice, "Good." Said it, hovering over the pool of vomit by the elf's side, "Get all that food out of your system.

Eol frowned, bile burning his mouth and sweat stinging his eyes. He felt weak. Vertigo took him. He wanted to lie down again, but the squalor repulsed him. A low hiss brought his attention back to Devildo. At a better vantage, Eol saw the complete hideous form. Devildo was a cat, a large, black cat of the kind that ran wild in the forest of Brethil before migrating to the slopes of Ered Wethrin. But the expression on the face, from the red gaping mouth to the yellow luminous eyes made it seem that it was merely something cat-shaped. The cat-shaped thing looked at him in a very un-cat-like manner, the small dark pearls on its diadem suddenly visible in the fluttering light inside the cave. Eol noticed its fur was well groomed and shone like dark velvet.

"If I break the ropes around your ankles, you would be able to stand, or run away. Really, what were they thinking.." Devildo stood beside Eol's ankles, head cocked to one side, a black claw poised above the bindings, Ô'But I am less stupid than they, and would loath to offend

A large female cat walked past, the breasts swollen with milk. Her litter followed her, small black bottlebrush tails held high. Eol turned his head and stared, entranced. At the end was one stripped ginger and white. It was smaller than the others, and mewled piteously as its mother laid down at the end of the room and its brothers and sisters pushed it away.

Eol's ankles suddenly stung. They were untied. The ropes fell across the floor. Devildo retracted his claw.

"Now don't run. I am not answerable for anything that would happen to you outside." Eol stood, slightly unsteadily and took a step backwards. All along the walls were caves, pieces of fabric hanging out of them. Shadows filled their entrances. Along the edges some ways off the ground, stood more Cats, their coats of mail studded with spikes.

Coarse hair brushed against the back of his thighs as Devildo circled him, its triangular head chest high.

"Welcome, Eol, to the Court of the Cat." And it purred. Eol was silent. He stared at the ginger and white kitten whose cries had grown louder.

"Why am I here?

"Wouldn't we all like to know? But you are here, because I am curious. A better question would be, where would you be going?" Devildo paused, and followed Eol's gaze, "Keep him then, you should have need of it where you will be going." He gestured to another. A strange wind passed Eol and an enormously long and thin shape picked up the kitten by the scruff of its neck and laid it down by Eol's feet. A moment later, there was a saucer of milk. The kitten lapped at it hungrily.

"I daresay they won't be pleased, but the orcs in the mines have dealt so much with elvish wiles and elvish artifice that they would not know what to do." Devildo glanced down at the small fur ball and wondered that something so useless would suddenly carry so much in the glance of a moment. When the kitten was finished it looked up at him with half-open eyes and cried. Eol bent down and picked it up in his arms. The kitten struggled for a moment before falling asleep. Devildo peered into Eol's arms and licked the kitten's head.

"In Angband," Devildo whispered, like all pranksters, unable to suppress the desire to tell, "We have served Sauron longer." Without glancing back, hewalked to the couch at the end of the room and leapt gracefully onto it. There was a shuffle of metal and claws. Along the walls, the cats reformed their files. The balrog entered, strangely like the light of a small candle in the airy cavern.

Devildo yawned.

"Take him to the mines, and let him see neither day or night!

--

"He's mine.

"He is.

"Give him back.

"He is back.

"You don't care for him.

"I don't," Melkor replied, earnestness in his voice, "I care for you.

"So you keep him to keep me in good faith?

"Never that, Sauron, you gave me your word," Melkor smiled, "But he belong to the mines. All good smiths do, you made sure of that. He also belongs to Mandos, or whatever ill spirit that comes to take him, you wove your magic well.

Sauron blanched beneath the film of dirt and gore. He looked down at his hands, and stared.

"The name you give him. Annatar." Melkor continued, and laughed, "I hope he thanked you.

Sauron continued to stare at his hand. His armor's travel and bloodstained. The Hunter, the Beast, Thu who gathered the ghouls, the misbegotten, and the strayed and fallen. But he served Melkor, and Melkor's hands were scarred evilly, as was his. So why was he ashamed?

"My purpose is not wanton." Sauron looked up, and for the first time, fear and hate gained the same space in him, "And so nothing passes unless I give leave for what pleases and what is acceptable to me.

The Silmarils were bright in Sauron's thoughts that night. Eol's absence stirred something invading and vengeful in him. The dulled wisdom of his being caught a glimpse of the extent Melkor's lies and now forced the nightmare of his choice to turn in his mind. As Melkor spoke, Sauron saw that had traded his life for a mere breath it. Despite all the deep litany of sacrifice and courage. At the end it was not freedom. It would be the void whether they won or lost at the end for Melkor carried part of the Void with him. The darkness lived, and he had been too enamored of his own phantoms to see it surrounding him and he drank and ate it not knowing that he ate and drank and ate only of it; he was the vilest worshipper of what he despised. Sauron looked down again at his blackened hand and realized that he would no longer be able to wander in fair memory when he carried the knowledge with him. Lost amidst the labyrinth of his own desires the art of his being had came to a stop.

"Do you believe me?" Asked Melkor, "Did you believe me?

"I did," Answered Sauron, "And I do." _Ah, for choice is no choice at all, and I shall be consumed by either one or the other. _"For all things are but for a moment before it fades." Yet he had never been one for despair. _I can have but what I can have._

"Save me," Melkor cried, "I am eternal. I am time. See how the Valar and the elves move against me in haste. Haste exists because I am here. I give purpose to their time. I am the reason why higher beauty, higher art, higher fate exist. Go against a beast and you are but fain to oblige your body. Go against creature of the dark at the cost of a limb or a life you but fulfill a duty. Go against Melkor you have woven your doom, transcending all things of flesh and heart until you could no longer meet Iluvatar's eyes, he who would look upon all things would not be able to look at me and all that would come to my end.

Sauron held his peace seething as it was, because what he wanted he had wanted since Ea. He had perpetrated all Melkor wishes. If Melkor's end was true, Sauron still saw little purpose, little accomplishment in the thousand of years he had followed this apparently grand and great way. But Melkor's eyes were on him, the glance fabulous and impenetrable in the fever of the words. Sauron's own eyes were cold pitiless. Despair was near him.

"You betrayed me Sauron," Melkor's voice gentled, though the feverish gaze did not abate, "To desire to keep something beyond my grasp. We have not all the strengths of the Valar of Valinor, we cannot afford to divide ourselves, to say, this is mine, and mine only. Your kindness, your gift to Eol, was cruelty to all. You, of all on this land, should know what once was can never be again. It's the dead past. It's in the constancy of change in this world we see the future, and thus, hope.

Those were his own words to himself. Sauron burned and shivered with shame and anger. He raised his hand slowly and took his gauntlet off until the Silmaril blackened hand, bloodless and clean, blocked the sight of Melkor from his view.

"Perhaps I am not worthy," Sauron said, lowering his hand slowly, "Of your vestment upon me. But we cannot talk of dishonor here." He paused. "Nor of greed.

Then Melkor stepped down from his seat, walked, and stood very close to him. Why must you whisper, Sauron thought, as the first breath whispered passed upon his skin. "I touched him, and he was beautiful," Melkor said. The images spilled upon him like acid, curdling Sauron heart, "I kissed him, and tasted what you sought. I took him, and caught the glimpse of the fire of the Quendi him, and even of the passions in you.

The soft words were like small keys. They unlocked the puzzle that bound him. Sauron saw the machinations of Melkor uncovered, shining and smooth like a new statue. The matter was not Eol, but himself. The apprentice of Aule, the fire-sprite in him saw their work shattering and wept. The regent of Melkor on Middle-earth kneeled before his lord. As his knee touched the cold ground, the flashing anger that had mounted dissipated as a quick breath. Powerless, he would still garner what he had left.

"But in me you shall have forgiveness, Sauron, my lieutenant," Said Melkor, all cold eyes and winsome smile, "For you are made perfect in my eyes by the grace my being.

Yet in Sauron, though he may be washed in the graces of Melkor, lurked something so inexplicably complex that even Melkor's whispered words, so alike one's own thoughts, could not solve. Iluvatar did not look from without. He looked from within to see without so no one could be entirely blind, or entirely devoid of choice.

Trailing Sauron's form through the barren grounds of Angband, Melkor upon his high seat felt his weakness and nursed his rage.

--


End file.
